For Some, Movie Trailers Are the Main Event
This past weekend, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog opened in theaters nationwide. The live-action adaptation of the 1990s Sega game was an unexpected hit, taking in $70 million in its first four days, a record domestic opening for a film based on a video game franchise. But this success wasn’t a given. When the original trailer for the live action film appeared online last April, fans voiced a strong reaction to the CGI version of the titular hero, whose features were deemed too human-like, his fur too realistic and his overall vibe creepy. The backlash was swift, and three days later, director Jeff Fowler announced that the release date would be pushed back, and Sonic would be redesigned.
When the trailer for Universal’s adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats came out a few weeks later, it faced a similar reaction. Viewers online bristled at the CGI-ified versions of stars like Idris Elba and Judi Dench. Why were the cats so small, fans asked? Why did their bodies look so naked? Unlike Sonic, Cats never recovered from the initial outcry against it and, despite minimal redesigns, the film bombed at the box office over the winter holidays. Like Sonic, Disney’s Aladdin, which had its share of trailer haters who took issue with Will Smith’s computer-generated Genie, came out ahead of expectations. It grossed over $1 billion worldwide and a sequel is in the works.
As these high-profile reactions show, trailers have taken on an increased significance in the digital era. Drops are online events that give social media users and entertainment publications something that’s easy to watch and commentate on. In many ways, trailers are the ideal medium for our cultural moment. They’re short, free, and visual. Trailers don’t require any investment on the part of the viewer beyond the two minutes or so that it takes to watch. And of course, you don’t even need to watch a trailer to get in on the conversation around it. The hordes of articles that appear after a trailer drops tell you everything you need to know.
With so much content online and in theaters, a good (or bad) trailer can help a title stand out. In the past few years, trailers for prestige television shows, like HBO’s Westworld and Netflix’s Stranger Things, have become the norm. With long breaks between seasons of TV shows becoming more common, trailers have become an essential engagement tool to keep fans interested. Many TV shows follow the pattern set by film in the past decade of a teaser preceding a full-length preview released closer to the premiere date. One could argue that with the out of sync way we all watch television and movies these days, trailers are a safer, spoiler-free topic of conversation around the water cooler. It’s essential that both digital and traditional studios learn how to harness the power of trailers and maximize their short online life span. As the content field gets more crowded, the fifteen minutes of internet fame a trailer can buy will become even more valuable.
