A great movie trailer can single handedly turn a movie into a success story–like that genius Cloverfield trailer in 2007 that didn’t say what the title of the movie was. But it’s more common these days, I’d argue, for a trailer to have the opposite impact. A generic trailer can so thoroughly dampen hype for a film that something like Furiosa, a great movie everybody likes that’s a sequel to a great movie everybody likes, could become a major box office disappointment.
Furiosa was the second big financial letdown in May after The Fall Guy kicked the month off with a similarly low-key box office take, and both will end up coming in well below the numbers that summer blockbusters are supposed to have–neither of these films will get to the $100 million mark at the domestic box office. There are a lot of factors playing a part in why the summer has been so dismal thus far, but this my favorite: the trailers for those movies were awful.
In technical terms, the ads for The Fall Guy and Furiosa are fine. They’re slickly edited, and they played up the cool action that those films have and all that. But they lacked something that’s just as important as big explosions for potential audiences: information. The Fall Guy was marketed on being a movie that Ryan Gosling does action scenes in–but if you wanted to actually know what it was about, or what the title meant, you’d have to google it. Furiosa, likewise, was sold as little more than Fury Road again but with new actors, with the trailers doing little to demonstrate how immensely different it is in structure. Furiosa is an epic tale that takes place over 18 years–it’s the Godfather Part 2 of Mad Max, basically, but the ads hid everything that made it different from the last one.
The core issue, really, is how cookie cutter the Hollywood marketing machine has gotten–just about every big trailer is cut similarly to these ones I’m complaining about. But it’s fine when they actually give us information, or are able to come somewhat close to matching the vibe of the movie. That’s certainly a factor in how Denis Villeneuve’s Dune flicks have managed to become hits, with Part Two reigning as the top movie of 2024 so far–the trailers for both Dune movies generally reflect the vibe of the films they are selling, and they use narration to fill you in on the various conflicts in the story so you can get a sense of what’s going on without reading any books. In other words, those trailers come off subconsciously to viewers as sincere and trustworthy.
And by extension, the trailers for The Fall Guy and Furiosa, which seem to fear trying to sell those movies on their own actual merits, play instead as empty and meaningless and not really worth caring about. Hollywood’s been churning out trailers like this, which coast entirely on vibes at the expense of telling you what the movie is about, non-stop for about a decade–we may just be over it at this point.
Previously: Are trailers revealing too much again nowadays?
Or maybe the issue is that no one wants to go to the theatre anymore and both of these movies will perform just fine on streaming services. My local AMC theatre is dirty, sticky, and oily everywhere. None of the employees give a flying fuck and the management obviously just wants to squeeze as much money out of the operation as possible for the least amount of care and concern. People still talk and are generally annoying during movies in theatres. There’s no movie, Furiosa or otherwise, that I would prefer to see in a theatre anymore.
On the flipside, my wife and I go to eatery-style movie theaters and the chairs are very comfortable, the food is expensive (but so was just candy/popcorn+drink combos of the past) and generally the food is actually good. Maybe just need to find a better theater for you to enjoy the movie going experience.
We also rarely ever go on an opening night, much nicer when the theater has less people in it.
Yeah, same here. For the couple movies a year we actually want to see in a theatre, we go to a “VIP” one that serves alcoholic drinks and some snacky foods on top of the typical movie theater stuff. No teens allowed because of the drinks. So much cleaner in general and comfier seats than a typical theater. It’s a bit more expensive, especially when overpaying for the beer, but it is for so much better experience.
Then don’t order one? You’re not required to order food at places like Alamo Drafthouse. I typically get a basket of french fries and a couple beers. They’re pretty strict about disturbances in the audience too.
I went to a Cinemark once not too long ago, on the other hand, and it was a gross mess. The people in the seat next to me dropped something under their seat and pulled out their phone flashlights to look for it. Someone from staff came out with a flashlight too. It took them like 10 minutes to find whatever it is they dropped, they talked the whole time and it was super disruptive.
How much of this is an enshitificatin dynamic?
My impression is that cinemas used to be everywhere, like corner sandwich shops almost, and have been killed off by mega corp monopolies.
Like the film industry itself, it could just be the sort of thing best done without trying to make a significant profit, but instead happy to break even.
Just stop watching trailers and go in blind.
One of my favorite reveals was finding out that ‘Passengers’ wasn’t a train movie, which made everything that much better being blindsided by a pretty decent scifi story when I was expecting another train murder mystery.
Which why I refuse to watch anything on Deadpool 3. I did the same with Dp2 and enjoyed the movie that much more. Trailers just steal endorphin rush from the main event IMO.
Just stop watching trailers and go in blind.
Bit difficult to avoid in the cinema - I already arrive late to avoid the ads, getting the timing right to avoid trailers too would be tricky.
Noise canceling headphones and an audiobook or music, I do it every time.
I am not paying money to see something I know nothing about. They already bombard you with 15 minutes of ads and 15 more minutes of trailers, and charge you for the pleasure of wasting so much of your precious, unrecoverable time.
And when you hit your 30s/40s and have kids, going to the movies is not just costly, it’s a whole… endeavor.
“Going in blind” sounds great, but it’s just not reasonable or feasible for the vast majority of people.
That’s why also waiting until they’re streaming helps, too. If it’s an IP I’m already interested in, I’ll see it in theatres, blind, if it’s something new I’ll generally wait for it to be stream able then do the same at home.
Edit: case in point, I’m watching Tenet now and had no clue what it was about and it’s blowing my mind. I can’t believe I slept on this one for so long.
Bad writing is hurting movies
Maybe partially related but I also dislike it when you’re watching a movie and you can just feel the scenes that were shot specifically for the trailer.
Trailers nowadays reveal all the major plot points or nothing at all. Sometimes I’ll watch a trailer and know how generic it is, and sometimes I’ll watch it not knowing a single thing about the movie.
The best way to watch a trailer nowadays is just the first 30-60 seconds. If you don’t know what’s going on after that timespan, it’s not worth watching, but any longer and you’ll know too much.
