Originally published in print September 2020.
Over the past decade, there has been a surge in cinematic centrepieces which can be more closely recognised as stadium events than works of art. One of the consequences of this exponential rise in mainstream popularity for headliner films like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or even Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020), is a newfound scrutiny for products that fail to meet the polished, pristine standards expected of these momentous blockbusters. First impressions matter now more than ever, as the first publicly accessible glimpse at a film will stick to it for the duration of its marketing campaign and beyond. Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler, 2020) was, for example, mocked relentlessly for the hideously designed character model in the film’s first teaser, even when his appearance was reworked in time for the premiere. It is reasonably safe to determine then, that the medium of film trailers has evolved past the point of simple promotion; they are now an essential part of any film’s identity in online circles.
There is no question that trailers have become a staple of mainstream cinematic culture over the past several years. Even placing the trailers for The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012) and its sequel Avengers: Endgame (Joe and Anthony Russo, 2020) side-by-side yields significant, contrasting results. Setting aside the differences in viewership—33 million for Avengers versus 101 million for Endgame—they are promoting immensely different experiences despite being decidedly similar films. Indeed, the presentation of The Avengers trailer is lathered with clichés that would be considered embarrassing by today’s standards; the SNL-parody triumvirate of sinister narration, sweeping city shots and slow-motion explosions are all packed into the first twenty seconds alone. Even the beat leading into the iconic Marvel Studios title card is lacking in iconography; the trailer is promoting action, not characters. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) doesn’t make an appearance until the minute mark, and does so with minimal fanfare.
The trailer for Endgame, on the other hand, features exactly zero shots of combat, instead being built around fading shots of each beloved character. Iron Man’s helmet appears in the very first frame, and from that point on the trailer continuously promises us something far more interesting than adrenaline: catharsis. It is essentially a short film, constructing a narrative of intrigue around the question that had riddled the Internet for months: what will happen next? Even the word ‘Endgame’ is withheld from the video’s title, being reserved exclusively for those who have experienced its secrets in real-time. The trailer builds this intrigue, teasing us with cryptic dialogue and emotional outcries, before dropping a double beat in the form of the title and then finally an answer to that aforementioned question in the form of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd). There is a three-act story contained within its two-and-a-half-minute runtime, and the impact this experiment has had on the film’s success speaks for itself.
In the past couple of years, this trend of transforming trailers into bite-sized films has taken Hollywood by storm. Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019) was promoted using a condensed version of its entire plot, down to the slow build to Benoit Blanc’s (Daniel Craig) now famous line: “I suspect foul play,” followed by an explosive frenzy of deadly blades, hidden passageways and even twist reveals through the character of Ransom (Chris Evans), all packed into the span of a micro-short. The trailer promises a ‘Rian Johnson Whodunnit’, and then readily provides us with a boiled down rendition of the film’s contents, minus the climax, and this approach is no anomaly. Virtually every trailer for a major release nowadays is a genre film in-and-of-itself, whether that be an epically-scaled mystery, an adventurous romp or a traumatic horror film. I would go so far as to argue that the best of them are artistic achievements in and of themselves. In the cases of works like Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019) and The New Mutants (Josh Boone, 2020), they can even impress more than the films themselves.
This shift in priorities for trailer houses has been a fascinating one to trace over the past number of years. Suneil Beri, an editor at Create Advertising (the house responsible for Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017) and Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2017) among others), said in an interview with Radio Times in 2018 that there were four key demographics targeted by the biggest productions: males and females over and under 25. Today, a mere two years after this information was disclosed, the core strategy employed by the bulk of these houses appears to have turned away almost entirely from targeting gendered and ageist tropes in favour of pandering to fans of specific stories and genres. Mindless action is no longer a point of significant interest, rather it is a film’s ability to offer a unique package amongst heavy competition that can secure its success. For the first time in decades, quality is more easily marketable than quantity, and I for one am immensely curious to see how this attitude will have evolved ten years further down the road.
