In the run-and-gun world of film P-and-A (Print and Advertising) selling a movie continues to become more and more viral, i.e. Web sites and movie blog backing, and less and less physical, i.e. posters and movie stars. Posters are now merely window dressing for a film who’s trailer will release on the Web in two days or less. It’s an appetizer for THE appetizer. And, right alongside viral buzz and early criticism from Tweeters and film critics alike, the movie trailer is the most important factor in selling a movie – which, on a side note, is pretty incredible when you consider how long trailers have been around promoting films (check out the trailer for the 1952 The Greatest Show on Earth.)
However, trailers of today are insanely different from the trailers of the past. Few rely on the actors in their films anymore. Consider the initial trailer for The Matrix, which relies nearly entirely on special effects rather than its cast or storyline. Now take a look at the trailer for Psycho, which has Hitchcock himself walking the viewers around the set of the film and selling the thrilling hook of his own film. Can you imagine George Lucas doing something like that for The Phantom Menace?
That being said, not all of the “older” trailers were so different from the trailers of today, a good example being John Carpenter’s The Thing. Pretty standard fare, then and now. The two biggest differences between that and something like the 28 Weeks Later domestic trailer, let’s say, is the amount of narrative arc within the trailer itself. Nowadays, that arc is extended further into the movie’s plot than it once was. The trailer for The Thing was intent on selling the movie with a handful of provocative clips and an ingenious tagline (“Man is the warmest place to hide”), whereas the 28 Weeks Later trailer sold itself, opening with an exposition (London getting back on track after recovering from the initial infection), introducing characters (Robert Carlyle’s family, the soldiers and doctors) and introducing conflict, cuing Muse’s “Hysteria” to accompany the chaos on screen and showing many dying at the hands of this second wave of zombies.
Much of the surprise has been taken out of the actual film, but because the trailer sells itself, it sells the movie. They’re essentially two separate, yet co-dependent entities in today’s market. For further proof of this change, compare the trailers of original Taking of Pelham One Two Three and the remake. One is selling a film that’s based on a bestselling novel, the other is selling Denzel Washington and John Travolta in a well cut, well-scored, snappy two and a half minute short film. A short film that, if good enough, people are going to want to see a 120 minute version of, and pay for it. The remake’s trailer more or less gives away the general ending – we see Travolta’s bad guy in a cab out of the subway, so he at least got away that much. Yet again, much of the surprise has been taking out.
Ironically, where the two trailers are most similar is where the trailer for the remake falters – reliance on star power. Both trailers proclaim there movie stars as though they’re throwing down a four of a kind in a poker game. Back then it worked, nowadays it works less.
This brings us to an updated Trailer Rules to Live By list, based on the successes and busts of recent films and their corresponding trailers.
Check out the list below
1. The Reveal Rule: Give away enough without giving away too much.
A big rule that is almost constantly broken today. Horror films use it as real estate now. It’s not if the leads are going to die, it’s how, and who’s going to be the one survivor so they can make a sequel if they break even, or higher, at the box office. See one of the first Hostel trailers for proof of this, and The Strangers trailer for the exception to the “give away everything” horror rule.
The best trailers are the ones that seem to give away everything, but give away nothing at all. The most recent, and arguably the best, example of this is Scorcese’s Shutter Island trailer. There’s been a lot of “blog talk” about this thing giving away too much. That’s exactly what you want when you know you haven’t given away anything, and it will pay off for the film come opening day and the following weeks.
After all, the easiest rule to live by when it comes to trailers is this: if you’re movie really IS that good, than tell the people it is. Just don’t tell them EVERYTHING.
2. The Broad Rule: A broad trailer screams “we do not know how to sell this movie.” If the movie’s not broad, you will lose your audience halfway through the first weekend.
Adventureland. The most recent and most perfect example of breaking the Broad Rule. The movie was more Garden State than Superbad but the studio sold it as something like the latter starring the girl from Twilight. Truth was, it starred the still-not-quite-famous Jesse Eisenberg and was far more dramatic than funny. The film didn’t open well (around 6 million domestic) and will now exist as a mere cultish cautionary tale of selling of a movie you don’t have whilst ignoring what you do.
That being said, broad trailers work when the movie being sold is, in fact, broad. Easy example: Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories, or most every Adam Sandler movie. An Adam Sandler movie is an Adam Sandler movie and the same people go to see the movie every time it gets released, so selling it as broad just works and it’s a safe. Unfortunately, Adventureland was not an Adam Sandler movie. Or maybe fortunately.
3. The Bullshit Rule: Do not sell something you don’t have. Trick your audience and they will never forgive you.
See The Soloist and Lakeview Terrace for perfect examples on how to completely break this rule AND pay for it- the prior film was awful, the latter was great, and neither made any money. Why? Because people who went to see Jaime Foxx play Ray Charles part deux in The Soloist got a sloppy, uneven examination of poverty in Los Angeles starring a self-serving journalist Steve Lopez (played by Robert Downey Jr.) and those who went to see Samuel L. Jackson in a cop thriller got a taut, honest examination of racism in America.
People don’t like being swindled. Even stupid people. Selling your product as something else is only something you might be able to get away with through the first weekend. And honestly, it’s not hustling if it’s just lying. Hustling someone into buying a movie ticket to a movie they actually don’t want to see takes a lot more than promising someone something other than what is there, provided you actually want a box office taking and a return on your millions. You need to follow in the footsteps of people who bend/break/follow (depending on how you read it) the next rule…
4. The Honesty Rule: Branching off The Bullshit Rule, sometimes honesty is not always the best policy.
Anyone remember Terminator Salvation? Not a good movie. Great trailer. Made me want to see it more than Up. That’s the truth. It appears that everyone knew they had a summer clunker with the 4th Terminator, so they did the only thing they could – sold the hell out of it. Sold Bale, sold the size of the Terminators and even, towards the end, sold Arnold, even though he actually was not in the film.
This is where The Bullshit Rule gets fuzzy. If you were supposed to have it but don’t, sometimes you just have to do your best to make it seem like you have it and hope enough people will believe you always did/pay to see the movie’s anyway. A lot of film companies do this already, relying completely on the first weekend. Fox does it all the time, most recently with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
However, this isn’t a new thing. Anyone remember how great the Godzilla trailer was – and then how terrible the movie turned out to be? It didn’t end up sinking the movie, thanks, in part, to the awesome trailer. The film took in 32 percent of its domestic gross in its first weekend – that’s trailer-fused money as far as I’m concerned – and eventually made all of it’s budget back and a significant amount more internationally. Well done trailer, well done.
5. The Confusion Rule: Confusion works if your movie’s confusing – not if it’s standard fodder.
Confusion can be provocative. But it is always risky. Sometimes the confusion investment pays off (think Cloverfield) and sometimes it kills a movie before it even opens (think Seven Pounds). Confusing works if it fits the film you’re selling. Cloverfield was a digital labyrinthe of a movie, the camera shaking all over the place for a significant portion of the film, all the while mincing spot-on digital effects to help create an alarmingly organic “recording” of a NYC monster attack. Seven Pounds, on the other hand, was a simple-minded morality piece that had no business hiding its ending the way it did, promising things that the story just could not deliver, even with Will Smith at the helm.
Most recently, Duncan Jones’ Moon pays off its ambiguous trailer. Previewing before Moon in theaters was the equally confusing trailer for Christian Alvart’s sci-fi thriller Pandorum. It’s cut nicely and recalls creepier sci-fi movies like Event Horizon or even Sunshine, so it will be interesting to see if Alvart’s film is original enough to live up to The Confusion Rule.
These rules work, but they are certainly not the end-all-be-all. Because, at the end of the day, some of the best trailers in the world break all of the rules (like this one or this one) – and maybe that’s exactly why they’re the best trailers in the world. After all, rules were made to be broken.