Photos: Stunning Alternate Movie Posters from Beijing’s Spin Destiny Studio

We love some good ol’ fashioned movie posters. Despite the near-extinction of print media, movie posters have managed to retain a niche cultural significance — Twitter will still go crazy when a new Star Wars movie “poster” is released as a JPEG.

That being said, we recently caught wind of Beijing-based design firm Spin Destiny Studio, specializing in “visual work for movie posters” (wow, speaking of niches). It’s obviously working for them, because a lot of these posters surpass the originals and they’ve been working with some pretty big names — this isn’t just fan art; for the Journey to the West poster pictured below, for example, the studio collaborated with director Stephen Chow.

“It’s a necessity that Chinese designers continually outdo themselves,” Tony Genggan, the studio’s co-founder, explained in an interview on Sohu. “A designer has to forget about all the great things he’s done in the past, start back from ground zero, and not be too eager or prideful. You can’t be distracted, you can’t drop the ball — it’s a meditative process.”

Here are some of our favorite posters from Spin Destiny Studio, and a few side-by-sides with their international releases.

1. Blade Runner 2049
   
   

   International “Blade Runner 2049” Poster.

   

   Spin Destiny’s Version A. Pretty frickin’ sweet.

   

   Spin Destiny’s Version B.

2. Murder on the Orient Express
   

   International poster for “Murder on the Orient Express”

   

   Spin Destiny Studio’s take on the poster. Goddamn this is beautiful.

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming
   

   Here’s a boring old international poster for “Spider-Man: Homecoming”

   

   Now look at how Spin Destiny does these. Cross-continental Spider-Man China tour. Genius. Here’s spidey scrolling through his newsfeed on the Great Wall.

   

   Kung Fu homage at Shaolin Temple. A necessity.

   

   Spider-Man with pandas! Where else can you get this??

   

   Spider-Man taking selfies with Shanghai’s Pearl Tower.

   (We’re going to go ahead and link you to the rest of these, because they’re really too good.)

4. Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back
   

   The bright, psychedelic poster for “Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back” creates a completely different energy for the film.

5. Power Rangers
   
   

   International poster for 2017’s “Power Rangers”

   

   Spin Destiny’s version keeps much closer to the old-school, Japanese origins of the franchise

Spin Destiny, you guys are dope. We love you.

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