As of the last two years, many film previews have taken to the practice of not only showing a preview, but giving away major plot points in the process. For instance: Cast Away let people know from the get go that he would get off of the island, which was a key plot point. Most recently, the recruit is giving away major plot points. Do audiences even want to be surprised anymore?


I only ask because it has always been a dream of mine to make advertise a movie one way and then surprise audiences by making it a total opposite of what they exepct.
I would love to market something looking like a teen love story and then not have them find out it's a Texas Chainsaw Massacre type flick until they are in their seats.

If you look at old trailers on your DVD's you may be surprised to discover that throughout history trailers have ALWAYS given away too much.

I'm amazed at how many people were shocked at the sudden change into a vampire movie that "From Dusk til Dawn" made, despite the previews. When I saw it I was suprised at how much non-vampire storyline was in it.

Don't watch the trailer for Seven Samurai before watching the movie, I made that mistake and had the ending revealed to me.

With all the movies that come out during a month, and most average(read:JSP) going to a movie once maybe twice a month, these trailers need to show enough to make youwant to see the rest of the movie. They have to be the one movie you see and without being a franchise or having big big name stars in it it is hard to draw a person into that movie without giving away some key points or scenes that would make you say, "I wonder why that happened?", or, "That was cool, I'd like to see more of that."

Also about your idea, I always thought that would be cool too, however the reality is, whoever is bankrolling the movie would most probably not let you do that, and if you made it too surprising you may end up gettin bad word of mouth because people thought they were tricked, and not in a good way, and (some) people hate that.

All comments above reflect my views and not necessarily those of DVDTalk, its members or Fox News.

Quite frankly, its the only way to get many people interested. A unique plot works far better in attracting an audience to one movie over another. Of course with CastAway, i didn't think much of it at all as i honestly didn't think he'd be left on the island the whole movie.

I just saw a preview for Empire and couldn't believe they gave away what looks like a major portion of the movie (the scam).

I absolutely hate this. I have gotten to the point where I will probbly start closing my eyes and plugging my ears 30-40 seconds into trailers.

This has been driving me nuts for years and it just seems to be getting worse. Particularly w/ trailers for The Recruit and A Man Apart playing in the theaters right now (even though a shorter Recruit trailer is playing on every TV station in the country as we type), it is almost as if the whole movie is being given away taking away all surprise and/or suspense that could be had if key plot-points were not revealed before we entered the theater.

I agree with the origianl poster that a lot of today's trailers give away a lot of the plot. If you have seen the trailer for back to the future part I, one can see that little has been revealed but it still leaves a lot of intrigue. I wish more movie trailers would be put together like that.

I've found this to be the case as well. I didn't go to the movies a lot when I was younger, I'd just catch the big movies when they hit video.....but now looking back at those trailers on the DVD's, they so give the whole movie away.

As for advertising it one way and it actually being something else....that's just asking for bad word of mouth, regardless of how good the movie actually is. I remember when Unbreakable came out...people were pissed because the movie wasn't what they expected...and never really judged the movie for what it was.

And milwaukee_mike, Empire isn't really about the scam....it takes up a small portion of the running time, but it makes suitable trailer material so that's what they used.

Doubt that would work to your advantage...people like knowing what to expect when they go to the movies.

Most of the people going into a romance and having it turn into a horror would be incredibly pissed off.

I hate it too, but sometimes it works in my favor ... like Sweet Home Alabama. I saw the entire film in 5 minutes while waiting for another film to start. Granted, I had no interest in seeing it, but it was still nice to get it out of the way so quickly. If only I could take a date to the trailer.

Some of the old school trailers are great. They'll show some guy walking around the studio lot saying, "hey, check out this movie starring so-and-so and blah-blah-blah ... it's going to be great" Not only do they not give anything away, they don't even tell you what the film is about.

das

Road Trip Trailer

I have a way around that actually. I would make the trailer more or less a teaser and give away few plot details. I would show lots of romantic stuff but then have the R rating come up in big print claiming it was R for sexuality and strong violence. That would at least get them interested out of morbid curiousity.

If not that, then I would have the romantic teaser with a dark sense of foreboding at the end, and then never show another piece of the movie until people got into the flick.

I think Ebert's review of Cast Away perfectly describes the notion of "the whole movie in 3 minutes" trailers.

I like horror movies, but I woudn't go to watch a teen love story.

I don't think that will be enough.

From the review: [Zemekis:] "We know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It's just one of those things. To me, being a movie lover and film student and a film scholar and a director, I don't. What I relate it to is McDonald's. The reason McDonald's is a tremendous success is that you don't have any surprises. You know exactly what it is going to taste like. Everybody knows the menu."

A strange statement, implying as it does that Zemeckis is a movie lover, student and scholar but that he doesn't market his movies for people like himself. This is all the more depressing since he usually makes good ones.

I agree with das Monkey. Saves me some time so I don't have to watch the whole thing .