So I have been stewing on the idea of movie trailers possibly spoiling a movie. What really bothers me are the ones that some dumb ass at the studios allow to reach us. The ones with to much information or to long of a cut on something that should of been left for the big screen. Is viral marketing getting out of hand?
Vic over at ScreenRant gave in and finally said no to The Dark Knight viral marketing and will not post any more news on the film until after its release. I don’t blame him. Look at our featured articles. The ones that garner the most hits are about The Dark Knight or the latest upcoming blockbuster.
Here are some raw estimated numbers for you.
The Dark Knight has around 30 trailers to its name and is almost 2 weeks out from release.
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army has around 20 trailers.
Iron Man had over 30 trailers.
Are the studios and their trailers killing the movies before they even come out? And this doesn’t include all of the viral marketing that is happening these days. I think that the barrage of scenes, trailers, teasers and such are killing the anticipation of fans who look forward to a little surprise every once in a while.
While the above 3 films did or will do well at the box office no matter what, its hard for us folks to avoid all contact with these goodies. You have to make a conscience effort to avoid all the trailers, photos, leaked footage to really enjoy the movies that come out. I think we saw most of Iron Man prior to it coming out with that many damn trailers.
What do you all think. In this day and age of instant gratification in many realms, are trailers killing our movies? Let me know what you all think. I would be interested in such a conversation.
The Dark Knight has to be given a lot of credit for not revealing Two Face ahead of time. That’s rare. (there was the render cgi but that’s not final)
It’s really telling if you compare today situation to the trailers before Jurassic Park came out – they didn’t even have dinosaurs IN them.
In the sense of profit, no, trailers are not killing the movies. The more someone feels the connectivity to a product before it even reaches the mainstream, the more likely they will probably go see it to fulfill some sense of uniqueness.
But for others, trailers make it hard to anticipate a movie these days if you see all the worthwhile scenes there are to see before the movie even starts.
If I want to see a movie, I do everything I can to dodge the trailers, but in this day and age, people have this sense that they need to know about something before it screens. Which makes it hard for reporters / bloggers who may want to dodge the info before seeing a movie, but must report on it to give their readership what the want.
It’s a fine line, a balancing act if you will.