Trailers, To Watch or Not To Watch?
Hulk, Dark Knight, Indy, Hellboy. Better without seeing the trailers?
Photo: Universal Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures
For anyone that reads my constant stream of jibber jabber on a daily basis you know that I approached summer 2008 with an attempt to try and not watch as many trailers as possible for the big summer blockbusters. It’s not an easy task for someone in my position. There is the fact that I post just about every trailer that comes up, write an article about it, post clips, etc. Then I head to the theater and traditionally before each of the screenings I see there is at least one trailer. Up until last week I had managed to avoid trailers for all of the following movies before seeing them:
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Sex and the City
- The Incredible Hulk
- The Love Guru
- Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
- The Dark Knight
- Pineapple Express
There are a few others in there, but they aren’t big enough to mention. As you can see I managed to see Indiana Jones, Sex and the City, The Incredible Hulk and The Love Guru without seeing a single ounce of footage before seeing the movie. In terms of Hulk and Indy I thought this was a major accomplishment. Sex and Guru weren’t promoted as much, which explains my ease there.
However, as for Hellboy, Dark Knight and Pineapple Express, I recently have to scratch one of those out and damn near lost my virginity on another one just last night before Get Smart.
First off, Pineapple Express is still safe. I haven’t seen or heard anything from it, but the same can’t be said for Hellboy 2. Prior to The Incredible Hulk they played the trailer for Hellboy and as much as I wanted to go in completely fresh for that movie I can say Hellboy 2 looks amazing! Hellboy 2 looks about 100 times better than the original and I only hope it can hold up to the trailer.
As for The Dark Knight, well… I almost lost my war with Warner Bros. as they seem determined to show me footage from this movie. Before the screening of Get Smart the trailer began. The music kicks in first and I knew what it was. I instantly went into embarrassing mode, which meant fingers in my ears and my eyes shut for two-and-a-half minutes. I heard muffled voices, but I didn’t see anything outside of an opening shot of a big building. I was saved.
This little experiment has proved to be a major pain and I don’t intend on trying it again after this summer. Primarily because I would rather discuss the trailers I post than simply post them. I can’t, though, say it is ever good to watch the trailer unless you aren’t sure you are going to see the movie in question.
Did you watch the trailer for Death Race? The damn thing gives away the entire film! Joan Allen runs a race to the death from her prison and the winner gets to go free. She has Jason Statham wrongly imprisoned so he can race. Roll credits. I mean damn, they gave away the entire thing and the movie doesn’t come out for another two months.
Photo: Universal Pictures
I guess that is still better than what Warner Bros. is doing with The Dark Knight (a.k.a. The Film that Doesn’t Need to be Marketed). Who are they running all these viral games for? Why all the pictures and posters? Titanic, Star Wars and Spider-Man all made a shit load of money and they didn’t have one billion ways of showing you the movie without showing you the movie. I was never sent an email about the Jack and Rose Titanic widget. (
Recently Warner Bros. did another viral thing-a-ma-bob in which they partnered with Domino’s Pizza and gave away free pizzas and then released a new clip from the film. This is fine with me, I just wonder why? Why do this? I know for a fact, an actual fact, no doubt about it, that anyone interested in the viral marketing of The Dark Knight will probably not only see the movie once during opening weekend, but they will probably also see it twice, if not three times. I would be willing to guarantee a second watch if all this marketing didn’t exist. I actually think Warner Bros. is hurting their film with so much marketing just as I believe studios hurt their films such as Death Race by giving away the entire film in the trailer.
There was no need for even an ounce of dialogue in that Death Race trailer. Just show some people driving in cars and killing people. Did you see the trailer for Punisher: War Zone? There is a terror threat and the Punisher is going to kill people. Done. What else do we need to know? Seeing the film will tell us if he kills ‘em good or kills ‘em boring. We don’t need anything more than what that trailer offered.
It actually surprises me the lengths people will go to in order to spoil a film. I saw articles posted saying “Indiana Jones Story Details From Soundtrack Listing ” and “X-Files Movie Plot Revealed: Novel“. The crazy thing is that the X-Files spoiler came from an X-Files fan site. Why would they want to spoil the movie? Especially X-Files, a film and a franchise designed around secrecy. Is it the desire to find out something they don’t want you to? Because I can’t imagine any other reason why you would want to go into a new movie already knowing what happened. As for the soundtrack listing story, that is just wildly insane to me. That is like seeing the Virgin Mary in your clam chowder crazy.
As for me, well, I am going to try and avoid trailers whenever possible after The Dark Knight, but I won’t go to the lengths I have gone to for The Dark Knight because my obsession with not seeing any footage is almost as insane as the people trying to see it. One thing is for sure, I hope studios go back to cutting trailers that don’t give anything away. I did go back and watch the trailers for Indy 4 and they didn’t give anything away, as much as I didn’t like that movie, I can say the trailers didn’t ruin it as much as the movie did.
Oh, and if you are wondering if not seeing any of the footage made Hulk better. Definitely! It’s nice to be surprised again, and pleasantly surprised at that.
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