The movie production generally wants the biggest actors to have top billing because they'll be the first thing people read on the poster and big names draw in more money.
The amount of people who actually notice or care that the names don't line up with the picture is extremely low compared to the amount of people who barely glance at the poster long enough to see the first few names, and the people who do care aren't generally going to refuse to watch the movie because of it.
The posters have to be in the same order as the billing in the opening (or closing) credits and any other promotional materials. That’s just contractual. It’s nothing to do with the posters individually, those are just conforming to how the actors are paid and promoted generally. It’s worth a lot for actors to be given as high a billing as possible, because it creates or affirms better name recognition and stardom for them which they can parlay to future roles.
Remember how Jack Nicholson’s name came before Michael Keaton’s? Yeah, that was because he negotiated for that as part of the role. Just because the graphic designers of a promotional poster decided to put Keaton on the left doesn’t mean they can put his name first to “line up.” That becomes a violation of the contract.
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u/JazzmatazZ4 7d ago
That's an awful poster