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Wide ScreenTeasers for trailers: What’s up with this bizarre trend?
The Hollywood marketing machine is always trying to come up with new and exciting ways to promote movies, but it may have just discovered the worst one of all: the teaser for the trailer.
No, we're not talking about teaser trailers, the short and often extremely cryptic trailers that precede a major release by about a year. No, what we're talking about are online teasers for full-length trailers, something that the movie studios are increasingly using to drum up buzz for their movies. Or, at least, to drum up buzz for the trailers for their movies.
The latest example of this type of marketing is for Len Wiseman's remake of "Total Recall," starring Colin Farrell and Bryan Cranston. A 30-second ad hit the Web this week, not promoting the film itself, but teasing the debut of a full-length trailer this weekend. It's essentially a commercial for a commercial. You can watch it in disbelief below.
That's it. A glimpse at what the "Total Recall" trailer (and, in turn, the actual film) has in store for viewers. Perfectly bite-sized and shareable for an increasingly distracted audience with no appetite for more lengthy content.
A teaser for a trailer for a remake of a film adapted from a novel. Sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, who wrote the original story, is more than likely rolling in his grave.
What's perhaps more distressing is that "Total Recall" isn't even the first movie to do this. Sure, entertainment programs have been teasing the debut of trailers on upcoming shows for years, but doing the same thing online is a new trend. Just this year, several studios have hyped the release of trailers for high-profile films such as "The Avengers" and "Prometheus" in advance.
Marvel plugged its costly, minute-long "Avengers" Super Bowl spot in the week leading up to the big event with a 10-second teaser distributed online, while Fox's "Prometheus" had a weeklong countdown to the release of its first trailer. It's a ridiculous trend, and one that further illustrates how low Hollywood has fallen. At this rate, it won't be long before the studios produce teasers for teasers for trailers.
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