THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKES is a comedy about the waning days of the ABA (American Basketball Association) league in 1975. The manager of the team was played by Kelsey Grammer, who also narrated the film.
The comedy, which I labeled a Jockumentary, was positioned as 1970s kitsch, especially thanks to lead character Kool Williams (played by Orlando Jones). In the film, Jones grabs a lot of the attention with a revolving wardrobe of various stereotypes. Subsequently we had a lot of photography of Jones and his character’s exaggerated 70s afro.
This movie poster design features the red, white, and blue ABA basketball paired with an equal sized hairstyle along with the copyline I wrote:
Different Era. Same Game. Bigger Hair.
This film was never released and subsequently none of the poster designs ever saw the light of the day. In a related note, ten years later Will Ferrell would star in another ABA basketball comedy called Semi-Pro.
Client: Universal Pictures
Unused movie poster concept
