MGM’s publicity campaign for 2001 started years before the film’s launch, and the posters and stills chosen for its 1968 Roadshow release did a nice job of selling the most ambitious Science Fiction film to date. But the film's audience was changing by early 1970, as the first engagements ended.
In response, Mike Kaplan designed two new posters for the “re-launch” of the film — the ‘Star Child’ (seen above in an ad in Variety Magazine, March 1970) and ‘Psychedelic Eye’ — which sold the film as the ‘ultimate trip’ to be experienced, again and again. The Star Child was used by MGM for all 1970s re-releases, but this Psychedelic Eye poster was only produded as a “wilding” poster for the 1970 relaunch, with most copies being pasted on walls and thus destroyed. So the ones that have survived are rare, and we finally have one.
