Never-Ending Movie Trailers Spoil Everything!
Movie companies give away everything.
Let’s look at the short-form video art known as movie trailers. Originally designed as a mini-sales pitch to lure folks into theaters, these over-produced video sequences now reveal the entire movie – beginning, middle and end.
The best punchlines, important story arcs and revealing plot twists are all put on display for potential moviegoers. When the time comes and some of these folks decide to part with $11 to see the cinematic masterpiece, they are often exposed to the exact same footage they have already seen – except this time – they are paying for it.
TV shows aren’t much better. It seems that these days, every show is followed by the highly-anticipated “COMING UP NEXT TIME!” Done correctly and these tiny vignettes can whet an audiences’ appetite for the next round of ‘must-see TV.’ Done the way most shows do it today, and I have no reason to tune in next week…because you just gave away everything!
I admit that I have a vivid imagination, and perhaps I enjoy envisioning all of the possibilities in my brain before they are presented to me. But I can’t be the only one who is tired of the five-minute movie trailer…am I?
So far, it appears 2009 will be a record-breaking year at the box office. I’m sure a large portion of that is due to inflated prices and screen saturation, more than the super-sized movie trailer. However, perhaps I should rethink my target. Maybe the problem isn’t the movie trailer at all. Perhaps the problem is YOU.
As long as you accept predictability, the theaters will continue to shove the extended trailer down our throats like buttery popcorn.
I am a theater of one, on my feet, begging the media makers to cut their teasers down to size. Some of us still like to be surprised, you know.
So until I see a change in the movie trailers of tomorrow, I will attend as many movies as possible, and let my cell phone ring through the trailers. Every single one.
What do you think?