The balance required between marketing a film and keeping an intriguing story surprises secret is complex, particularly in an industry that is struggling to woo customers away from the comfort of their television and into theater. Piecing a movie trailer is a difficult task, even for highly anticipated films, especially for those movies that actually need that strong marketing push. In recent years, studios have started tipping the balance: expelling too much information every opportunity that they get, not holding too much back. It’s understandable, given the amount of money that has been allotted to produce a film, but whatever happened to selling theatergoers on a movie experience instead of revealing its most climactic moments, virtually giving away the possible twist to that movie Previously, following a spoiler-filled trailer for Lazarus Effect and Jurassic World revealed a myriad of spoilers, but after the latest Terminator Genisy trailer, many fans were wishing Paramount Pictures had showed a bit more restraint, it’s time to address the question directly: Is too much information in trailers spoiling movies? What many failed to understand is marketing a movie is a arduous task, and no matter how good a film might actually be, there’s still immense pressure on the studio PR departments to get word out. Yet, there’s no question that film trailers have, on average, become more spoiler-heavy when compared to their predecessors. Back in the days of trailer voice guru Don LaFontaine, previews often spelled-out a film premise through voice over narration, with out-of-context shots of action, comedy, and drama peppered in, but stopped short of revealing the movie’s biggest twists and climatic CGI moments. For readers who don’t remember a time before spoiler-filled trailers – where surprises and eye-popping visuals were outright used to a film – here are two classic trailers (one known for its shocking twist, the other for its ground-breaking visual effects) that took a less heavy-handed approach: It’s also worth nothing that the length of trailers has significantly increased overtime (going from roughly 2 minutes to 2.5 or even 3 minutes). These doesn’t even include the countless extended previews that have become a staple of studio marketing strategy. For example, The Amazing Spiderman revealed a mix of extended trailers and spoilers clips. These videos spelled out almost every single twist and plot beat ahead of time. This including Harry Osborne’s transformation and SpiderMan showdown against Green Goblin. Consequently, the trailers Such action of the marketing department, ultimately summarized the entire film rather piquing audience interest. Viewers will debate the fine line between spoiler and core plot – but it’s easy to argue that, at the very least, movie studios have shifted from a more restrained preview approach. Compare the trailers for Transformers: Age of Extinction Jurassic World to the latest trailer for Terminator: Genisys, which outright spoils one of the film’s biggest secrets:John Connor’s hybrid man-machine or even last year’s Transformers: Age of Extinction,where the third act reveal of Optimus Prime riding robot dinosaur Grimlock was the movie’s primary marketing image. Moviegoers, especially cinephiles agree that trailers do show too much. Studios clearly have sound reasons to promote their products even in this way. If spoiler previews weren’t making films and their respective producers more money than trailers devoid of spoilers, there would be absolutely no reason for many studios to employ the notion ‘more is better’ in their overall approach to trailers. Since many moviegoers, and even theater chains, feel strongly that trailers show too much, where is the disconnect? The truth is many film die-hards that try to avoid spoilers will nevertheless go see a film anyway whereas eye-popping visual effects/brainy twists help woo casual customers who might otherwise have skipped a theater trip entirely. On any given day, we see many of our commenter’s response to spoiler marketing by replying with: “I wish they hadn’t shown [insert spoiler] but I’m totally going to see this anyway.” If those who prefer fewer specifics in trailers will still go see a film, in spite its spoiler marketing, what reason would studios have for being more subtle? Putting it plainly: They’re getting to eat their cake and have it too. As much as movie fans like to think that story and character drama are still key ingredients in attracting an audience, with higher production costs, heightened expectations for event theater viewing, and an overstuffed market of movie options to choose from, drawing casual attendees with eye-popping visuals (“Optimus Prime rides a robot dinosaur? Wow!”) and in-your-face twists (“John Connor has been turned into a Terminator? What?”) is the safer bet – even if it comes at the expense of more dedicated theatergoers. Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that most trailers are cut by a distributor or studio – not the film’s director. Select moviemakers have full control, or influence over previews and marketing, but the majority do not. Hence, even if a Director makes a modern movie classic, it’s still entirely up to studio executives to determine how best to market that film, piecing together the most ideal clips of the film to get as many viewers into theater seats as possible. In a subjective medium, it should come as little surprise that movie fans disagree on what studios should show in trailers – and where to draw the line in marketing memorable moments and plot twists (especially prior to release). Did the studio show too much and/or spoil moviegoer experience when they: Included Hulk catching Iron Man in The Avengers trailer? Showcased a standout scene of Koba playing ape to play with guns in the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes trailer? Featured Hiccup’s (presumed dead) mother in the How to Train Your Dragon 2 trailer? Or even worse, showed John Connor to be hybrid mix of Machine and Human Some will argue that movie lovers are just being overly sensitive – and that avoiding or accepting spoilers is part of being a film fan (especially if that fan closely follows movie news sites). Still, while some spoilers might “come with the territory” of consuming pre-release film marketing, there’s no doubt that, for many cinephiles, studios are not striking an acceptable balance between building excitement and maintaining surprises.
Understandably, fans are passionate about specific ideas of what should/should not be shown in trailers. But also understand, studios are not fans, they are businesses. Thus, they don’t really care how you feel When they think spoilers are going to hurt potential box office returns, they clamp down, and when they think spoilers will help get people in the seats, they open the floodgates. As long as spoilers in movie trailers add to the studio’s bottom line profit, don’t expect much change in the marketing approach.
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February 2019
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