Can Trailers Kill Films?

[The Mad Plumber]

I just took my sister out to see X-Men; I'll probably talk about the film later in the Comic Movies thread. Anyways, what struck me about this outing was a sorry bunch of trailers. Now, there were a few children in the theater, so I heard some chuckles over Jim Carrey's slapstick antics with CGI penguins. Still, after having watched these trailers, I was almost tempted to propose that the decade of the 2010s might possibly be as abysmal as the decade of the 1990s. In fact, after I saw a trailer to a film that was basically a love letter to the Ultimate Fighting games, I leaned over to my sister and my exact words were, "How f***ing disgusting." The only trailer that I could crack a smile to was one that evolved into a Planet of the Apes vehicle because I liked the build-up to the title.

So, I'm reminded back when I saw another movie and its set of trailers. One of these trailers was for The Ugly Truth. I had already passed my judgment on the movie through the trailer and thought it would never fly. Nevertheless, the damned movie did come out. Even though it sported the most unfunny and hideous of trailers, this film came out and I suppose it was still a success.

And so, I think back to Jim Carrey dancing with imaginary penguins. There's just a part of me that says, "No. This isn't going to happen. It can't happen. It's just not possible." It makes me wonder: could a trailer make or break a film?

I read a story or small piece of data that the trailer / teaser for the sequel to Tron was done as a test to see if audiences would be interested in such a film. From what I read, if the reaction was negative, the film would never have become a reality.

So, I ask this to people with better knowledge than I: are trailers meant to measure audience approval of a film in progress, and could a film get scrapped due to negative reactions? Are there instances where such a thing has happened? After all, I hear of films that end up abandoning theatrical release and going straight to video (though those might be from test audience reactions as opposed to the public).

[Crowfan]

I think it depends on the film, to be honest with you. I remember seeing a trailer for Mike Myers's "The Love Guru". I remember thinking this looked really stupid, yet that movie came out. With something like Tron, I imagine all that CGI stuff is pretty expensive to produce, and that could also figure in to what a studio decides.

Now I have seen the "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark" trailer, and that was supposed to come out in January of this year. For some reason the release date was changed to August. Why, I don't know, but most of the movie trailers I've seen have eventually come to the theaters.

[Torgo]

The teaser for Tron: Legacy you're refering to was an effects test that they showed Disney. Disney was impressed with the footage so they decided to greenlight the film.

Trailers are only made to create public awareness of the product. By the time they are released, filming has already been completed. It would be excessively poor business sense to say "oh stop everything! People didn't like trailer! I guess we should flush all that money down the toilet and do something else!" (the Mr. Popper's Penguins trailer you refer to actually comes out next week). It would be better to release it to theaters and get some of that money back than to just stuff it on the shelf for and wait for a DVD release. I doubt studios care how a trailer is recieved. They just want the public to know the movie is coming out. And whether you had a strong reaction to the trailer, positive or negative, it's mission accomplished.

Should a studio decide to cease a theatrical run on a certain film, it usually has to do withe studio's own opinion of the film. Idiocracy, for example, was slated for a theatrical release a few years ago, but even though audience reaction was in the positive, the studio hated the movie and pushed it through a limited run and dumped it on DVD. And then there are situations like MGM, who was going through bankruptcy. A horror film called the Poughkeepsie Tapes was advertised in theaters but never released. And it still hasn't reached the DVD shelf even after 4 years since what was to be it's theatrical run.

Those have nothing to do with trailers, and I doubt a film will ever not be released because it had a bad trailer.

[callipygias]

Not really relevant to the specific topic, but close enough:
True Grit was released yesterday, and I let the trailers run on the DVD, which I hardly ever do. I endured Thor and... some other dumbass comic booky one. Then they showed a quiet, interesting trailer about the moon landing that had me thinking I was glad I'd watched the trailers. Then it said, "From director Michael Bay," and a giant transformer started to move. I skipped to the feature.
The more respect these ridiculous and apparently endless comic book movies get the more I hate them for the junk they are.

[Skyroniter]

Yes.

[TheNewMads]

Jun 8, 2011 11:31:07 GMT -5 Torgo said:

Trailers are only made to create public awareness of the product. By the time they are released, filming has already been completed. It would be excessively poor business sense to say "oh stop everything! People didn't like trailer! I guess we should flush all that money down the toilet and do something else

that's probably literally true, once a movie is filmed, you might as well hump it out there no matter how bad it is and recoup your losses. that said, i have noticed that trailers ofter provide pretty valuable marketing information. i've definitely seen trailers in the theater where at the end a LOT of people are buzzing variants to the effect of "that looks good!" or "i'm gonna see that!" which, if you get that, you'd be a fool not to push to get a wider release when the movie finally comes out. and conversely, people who laugh derisively, such as they did when i saw a preview for "midnight meat train," which the audience seemed to be into up to the point the movie revealed its ridiculous title. if they'd gotten word of that reaction they could have maybe done a hasty post-production re-edit to change the title. kinda like the sort of thing that happens at test screenings if the audience reaction to something is negative. it's surprising how much they can change even after a movie is ostensibly "in the can."

[Torgo]

I hard a lot of rumors of the studio trying to change the title to Midnight Meat Train. I know a lot of what happened to that film had to do with the studio's uneasiness with marketing it. It's probably a rare exception to the rule. I remember sing it advertised myself, yet hearing stories of the studio not wanting to release it.

But most horror movies don't carry much of a budget. When it comes to blockbusters like Tron or the like the studio only cares about the money: how much they put into it and how much they can get back.

For example, one of the biggest bombs of all time, the Eddie Murphy the Adventures of Pluto Nash. The film sat on the shelf for 2 years before finally getting released. It was an awful movie and the studio knew just how bad it was. Why was it released? Because in their eagerness to release an Eddie Murphy movie in the wake of the Nutty Professor and Dr. Doolittle, they pumped $100 million into it. Instead of letting that investment rot, they gave it a theatrical release to make as much money as they could back from it.

An interestimg flipside to this (also partially involving Eddie Murphy) is the sequel to the film Daddy Day Care, Daddy Day Camp. Originally this was a direct to DVD feature that wasn't going to feature any returning cast members. However, when Cuba Gooding Jr. signed on in the former Eddie Murphy role, the studio felt his star power might bring audiences to theaters, so it release this cheapie on the big screen.

[TheNewMads]

ah, i remember pluto nash. when i watched it on DVD i was kinda on board, i mean, i didn't stop it or get bored or angry with it or anything. i suppose given the horrendous word of mouth on that movie the fact that i sat through it and wasn't consumed with rage amounts to a ringing endorsement. it had sorta this tried-hard-and-failed-badly air about it that made it a bit surreal. which is more than i can say for tron: legacy, which i found pretty much unendurably cynical, particularly in the second half. just no fun, no imagination. great eye candy. pluto nash, say what you will, definitely had imagination. it's just, it was the imagination of an apparent lunatic.

it's interesting about eddie murphy, he seems to have gone through some sort of narcissistic nervous breakdown where he's constantly playing off other computer-generated versions of himself. it's weird, it really seems megalomaniacal on his part. like, in the clinical, diagnosable sense. meanwhile his movies have descended from fairly decent cop movies like beverly hills cop and 48 hours to horrific drek like dr. doolittle and daddy day care. (which, actually, i haven't seen, but i'm going to assume is horrible in order to make my argument that eddie murphy is horrible. ok, wouldn't pass debate club but there it is.)

anyway, my point is, i wonder if they sat on pluto nash for so long while evaluated taking a hit on pluto nash by releasing it straight to DVD and missing out on a theatrical run vs. the damage a wider release would do to the eddie murphy brand. and they finally decided, you know what, eddie murphy's pretty much done anyway, so let's go ahead and put out pluto nash and get a couple million more bucks out of it on the presumption he never gets another hit outside being in the interminable shrek sequels. and if "norbit" is any indication, they made the right call.

cuba gooding, jr. is a funny one too. that guy was solid gold in the 90s but i saw "hit list" and omg, so ridiculous. but it's a bit like pluto nash, i mean not really but just in the sense that cuba gooding's character -- he's supposed to be a sinister inscrutable serial-killer type -- is so poorly defined and gooding's performance is so flat-out weird and clunky the movie's almost worth watching just to gawk at him. i wonder how his career tailspun like that, maybe murphy dragged him down with him.

anyway, i seem to have totally veered off topic. they should have shown previews of "hit list" and then used the disgruntled audience reactions as justification for burning all known copies of it, is my point.

[Mighty Jack]

Torgo’s hit the nail on the head. Trailers are about marketing and trying to convince you to see whatever it is they are selling.

Lets take Green Lantern. The studio knows that a dumbass like me is going to see this movie no matter what. Reviews could suck, word of mouth could suck… I’m still going to see it. They don’t really have to have sell me. But there’s a whole world of folks who are sitting on the fence, some are flat out hostile to the product from the start. Some just don’t have a lick of interest.

The first trailers for example, attempted to grab some of that fringe audience. They targeted women – they offered up some relationship stuff and our star in his underwear, etc. Now this backfired on them and they made an excuse about the FX not being ready (which might be true, though it doesn’t change the fact that the trailers were trying to attract an audience they feel wont go to the movie normally).

Since then they have gone right for the target audience. Bigger explosions, armies of Lanterns, some kind of global attack on the Earth. All geared to make teenagers and old nerds wet themselves in anticipation.

That sounds crass. But before you complain, it’s those big hits that keep them in business, and allows them to finance smaller, more adult productions. Hollywood is made up of two seasons. One is for money (Summer), one is for prestige (the awards season, Late Nov, Dec, early Jan). Folks can bitch about the summer blockbusters all they want, all they are doing is shooting themselves in the foot.

A major studio is able to finance a movie like say, the Last Station (about Tolstoy) because a movie like X-Men gave them the boatloads of cash to do so. They invest a lot in the Summer hits and need big returns - so they push, push, push whatever is big at the time as hard as they can. (sometimes succesfully, sometimes not so much. -- the jury is out on the two they showed during the X-flick... and I agree, both looked dumb)

-------

As to your statement about a decade being abysmal based on what you’ve seen from trailers. Trust me, there will be great movies available.

On average, Americans will be offered up 160 to 180 wide release movies a year. You can double that number with Independent, limited release films (I don’t live in a big city, more a mid sized town, but we still have two theaters that show art house, Indie, foreign fare) – Now if you add in the international releases there are well over 1,000 films released in a year. Most of these are geared towards the adult mindset. Mature drama, romances, historical, artistic, political/social studies -- all far exceed popcorn entertainment.

While working on a recent film thread --- armed with only a library card and an Online Blockbuster account I was exposed to untold treasures. Amazing, mature movies offered by the truckload. For every Twilight, Transformers, Harry Potter big money, big studio release, there is a Russian Ark, a Kings and Queen, a L’enfant… So if you are truly serious about serious film, fear not. It’s out there --- an overwhelming amount of great and varying film is available to view. You don’t have to just watch Jim Carrey do a dumb dance.

[The Mad Plumber]

That's very useful information from all you guys and I appreciate it.

Perhaps there was some overreaction to the shock of what I saw. There's my thought that Jim Carrey was struggling to get past the days of his slapstick stand-up routine by doing art house films. Then I just get thrown for a loop when I see this penguin flick for two reasons: (1) I would think Jim Carrey would have the luxury to avoid such pictures, and (2) I'm amazed that it got green-lit in the first place. However, I need not forget: this is an industry that makes sequels to The Chipmunks and this is not the first regretful movie Jim Carrey has starred in.

I hope I'm not approaching this from the angle of a cynic. I will admit that I can enjoy trashy, smutty, non-intellectual features. Hell, that's one thing I neglected to mention about what I liked about that X-Men film: the trashy smut. Maybe I shouldn't complain that a market is being satisfied. After all, I take exception when people complain about a lack of content geared towards them and cite the stuff that I like as being the cause. Maybe it's my frustration that I'm just not being marketed to.

However, I do feel a level of offense. While I'm not a parent, it does strike me that the sugary sappiness of what the Carrey vehicle offered was not something I would want kids to see. This isn't to say we didn't have garbage when we were kids; I will admit that Lou Albano's Super Mario Bros. was a truly dopey show. Trash is trash no matter when it was made. Still, I'd like to think that pictures like Mary Poppins and Labyrinth could be tolerable to parents as well.

You also saw that I felt very offended by that cage fighter vehicle. "Hey, man, you're a war hero." "Why? Because I saved that guy? What was I supposed to do?" Ah ha ha ha. Yeah, I get it. It's all Latin for, "If you don't like our Ultimate Fighting games, then you're a terrorist." Real classy. I can also note being offended that the Transformers 3 trailer compared the Decepticon assault to the 2001 attacks. Oh, Michael Bay.

I probably just have an issue with the similarities in all these trailers. I was watching this internet series called "Trailer Failure" (and please don't rant, I think it's funny). I look at these trailers and I can't help but note the cliches that they pull in all these trailers. The grunge rock music is always applied, no matter if the film is a futurist space opera or a prehistoric barbarian rumble. As a matter of fact, I think the further back in time we go, the more likely the music's going to be modern grunge. They always edit it like the film's going to be a grand epic. No, it's not. Lawrence of Arabia was an epic. Princess Mononoke was an epic. I will begrudgingly admit that the Lord of the Rings movies were epics. These films in the trailers, though, aren't epics. There are tons of other cliches: the 300-style battle lunge, the soundtrack ending on a shot, fades from black, etc.

I'm reminded that I found a trailer for RoboCop some long time ago. The funny thing is that it employed the music from Terminator as opposed to the Basil Poledouris score that ultimately accompanied the movie. And RoboCop is supposed to be a black comedy, which is what the Poledouris score properly complements.

Like I said, there was one trailer I liked because I thought the build-up to the title was hilarious. So, I will at least rent Planet of the Apes because I just liked that sell so well.

So, I get what you guys say about the trailers being designed to create product awareness. I will admit that at least they create a fair picture of the content of the film. However, I have to admit that I was initially turned off of Watchmen just from the trailer, and yet I later found I liked the film. Also, I wonder how people might have felt about the trailer of The Last Airbender versus the actual movie since I heard that the movie turned out epically awful.

The trailers I watched did include a Green Lantern trailer. A DC trailer before a Marvel film? Starring a guy who played a Marvel character? Maybe I'll rent it, but that's a big maybe. I should probably wait for MJ's take.

I've heard of Pluto Nash's terribleness, but I haven't witnessed it myself. I guess another movie that wasn't include in The 50 Worst Movies? Maybe I should try to get through that Film Brain review of it. That's very telling that they sat on this film. I wonder if Eddie Murphy exercised the same luxury that Bill Cosby did to save face and denounced the film publicly.

[GProopdog]

One thing I notice that trailer's for recent comedies do is to put all of the funny parts of the movie in the trailer, thus leaving you with 2-3 minutes of a funny movie, and the rest of it being just meh (See: Due Date).

[inlovewithcrow]

I always watch trailers on DVDs and I often see something that I want to see. I write it down. I'm a cheapskate, and I have three library cards, and every time I come upon the next library in my travels, I check my list and watch whichever they have. So the trailers sell me, yes, though because of my library habit, they make little money off that success. I'm not talking about comic book or shoot-'em-up flicks, which I dislike, but artsy films or comedies.

Having internet access this month, I watched a number of trailers, ran off to read Ebert's and Berardinelli's reviews, and came up with a short list of films I do want to see. Again, I won't spend a dime seeing them, but the trailers did their job. Now I'm looking forward to big budget films like Source Code and foreign films like Joueuse.

I bet a horrible trailer could have negative box office effects.