Wolfman Wallpaper

[Soap]

1) If all those filters and things were crap they wouldnt be coming with the package of photoshop.
And i too believe in the saying "simplicity is the key to success", and that is why i just suggested gradients. Classical oldstyle wallpapers also contained extra elements of design like splattered letters and all. Old Bookman style font was most used in those days. I am not saying that you do the same.
But.. A movie wallpaper needs to be attractive, You have to either go with the trends or change them.

One of the most famous movie posters ever from one of the most famous designers ever. It's a trend that hasn't died out and still informs modern day design in movies:



It's no good you looking out there and saying 'That's the trend' when you've done no research into the history of said trend, or have no data on how the designer reached that particular consesus of design.

Hollywood movie posters are mostly bullshit. Any designer worth his salts will tell you this. They're designed specifically to draw people in to watch the film and put a lot of glossy elements in to draw in these people. They follow the basic principles of design, but add a tonne of unecessary elements just because, as you pointed out, people want to be wowed. And it's absolutely no good sitting there saying "well, that's how everyone else is doing it, so that's how it must be done" design doesn't work that way. If design did work that way we'd never have had people like David Carson and people would still be hand-painting 'commercial advertising'.
Design is about following yourself, not following the crowd. Otherwise all you're doing is regurgitating everyone else's ideas.

There's large scope for alternate styling out there, like this:

Which is, quite simply, genius and well informed.

Or this:



Filters are there to be used, but not over-used. Primarily the filters are more for the purposes of photography than design (that is, after all, why it's called photoshop. Most designers I know and work with barely use photohop (I aint used it in a while myself), they use illustrator or (shock horror) a pencil!