I understand not wanting to spoil a movie. I understand mystique. I understand Christopher Nolan’s name alone can sell tickets. But if your trailer gives me two ominous shots, a clock ticking, three disconnected lines of dialogue and CHRISTOPHER NOLAN in 90-point font, you have not convinced me to spend $40+ going to the movies.
You’ve literally only managed to reinforce my opinion that Nolan, Cameron, even Villeneuve in certain campaigns, are in fact, just annoying assholes who are obsessed with themselves and their “art.” So, it really just convinces me you’re all dicks… sorry (not really, though, I’m not the annoying director)?
This is not exclusively a Christopher Nolan problem, he’s just one of the clearest examples of a much bigger issue I have: directors have turned themselves into brands so powerful that the marketing starts acting like their mere names are the premise, not the movie. And I hate it!
So, great, I know who made the movie, wonderful, how informative… mmm, not really, though. I don’t need the ending, a plot twist, chapters or multiple acts, every single set piece, and a three-minute trailer that everyone and their mother will dissect for hours online. No! I’d just like a general idea what the fucking movie is actually about!
Your résumé is not a plot synopsis. “From Christopher Nolan” is not a story; “From James Cameron” is not a story; “From Denis Villeneuve” is not a story; “From Jordan Peele” is not a story. Again, it tells us who made the damn thing, yet NOTHING AT THE SAME TIME!
Cool? Not really, because we still have no idea what the fuck the movie is about! Like, c’mon, stop flexing your names and just show us a coherent outline. I have faith in you!
It’s gotten super annoying how the director is now the trailer, because all the marketing is based off their names, and leans heavily on secrecy, clock imagery because that’s apparently mysterious (only when Taylor Swift does it, in my opinion), a scale that shows a random number that might mean something in the movie that no one will remember by the time it hits theatres, puzzle imagery, and the “you need to experience this IN THEATRES!” We’re just expected to trust Nolan’s name as the reason to go, which doesn’t hold water for me.
James Cameron, truly one of my favorite directors to give shit to because could he be any cockier? But it’s the same stupid formula: technological achievements by Cameron, the scale of the movie is iiiinnnsannnne, the visuals are crazy, THIS IS AN EVENT YOU HAVE TO SEE IN THEATRES, as if not going will ruin your life forever. It seriously starts to feel like you’re being sold the achievement of James Cameron making a movie, not the movie itself, that has become secondary at this point, if it’s even remembered now.
Denis Villeneuve isn’t as big of an offender, but I’ve noticed he does this during certain film campaigns of his… there’s prestige, movie scale, solemnity, brooding and moody, expensive-looking silence, and mainly people staring into the middle distance while something ENORMOUS happens behind them. All the trailer says is, “This IS CINEMA! DEAL WITH IT!”… again, not making me want to see this film any more than I did before your vague marketing campaign. I still have no idea what is HAPPENING!
Probably the biggest offender after Nolan, arguably before anyone else, is dear old J.J. Abrams because the mystery box is basically his only philosophy. Why he thinks secrecy should become the premise of a movie is baffling. Most audiences want to know a little more to even be interested, especially with streaming services offering the same shit, maybe a month later, but way cheaper, and hey, you can watch it at home and pause it and shit! CRAZY!
Cloverfield is probably the most obvious example. The first teaser didn’t even give you the title. You got a party, screaming, explosions, the Statue of Liberty’s head rolling down the street, and a release date. That’s it. Which, okay, was VERY effective at making everyone go, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” But it also basically turned the marketing campaign into a scavenger hunt where the mystery itself became the product. Abrams LOVES that shit. The movie almost becomes secondary to figuring out what the movie is.
And I’ll give him credit: with Cloverfield, it worked! People were obsessed. But that doesn’t mean every movie needs to act like revealing a basic premise will somehow cause the entire production to self-destruct. Sometimes you can just tell me there’s a giant fucking monster attacking New York. I promise I’ll still have questions.
I’d argue that Jordan Peele is slightly more defensible because his trailers usually give the audience a visual or conceptual hook, so at least I know there’s a REASON I’m confused. Get Out gave us the creepy family, the hypnosis, the weird-ass behavior, and enough of the premise to know something was seriously wrong without telling us what the hell was actually going on. PERFECT. That’s mystery! I know what movie I’m watching, I just don’t know the answer yet.
But Nope played way more into the “what the hell even is this?” thing, and by that point Peele’s name carried enough weight that “A Jordan Peele Movie” was basically part of the premise. Which, is, of course, okay. I like Jordan Peele, too! But again, the director’s name is not the movie! They can be mysterious without acting like giving me one coherent sentence about the plot will cause the film to burst into flames.
And honestly, Peele is probably the best example of why I’m NOT saying mystery itself is bad. Get Out is mysterious as hell, but I know what I’m supposed to care about. There’s a guy visiting his girlfriend’s family, everybody is acting fucking bizarre, something is clearly VERY WRONG, and now I want to know WHAT. That is completely different from giving me five gorgeous shots, a noise, somebody whispering “it’s coming,” and then expecting me to do independent research.
It’s really not just those directors who think shrouding their movies in secrecy is better marketing today with all the other options available. It’s the directors who are TRULY great, yet they are so easy to distinguish, they’re starting to butcher their own work because they have the same wash, rinse, repeat formula.
Zack Snyder is a great example. Watchmen was adapted so well, the score was amazing and totally took me aback, and they stuck so close to the source material, I was honestly shocked. Especially considering Watchmen is a complicated graphic novel in and of itself, and translating it into film while incorporating so much CGI, and NOT having it come off as campy bullshit is truly impressive. Buuuut, when you see the trailer for Watchmen, I immediately see 300.
It’s typical Snyder shit: “Look at This Shot™!” or “Check out this slooooooooooooow motion!” Not to mention the almost religious-looking composition and giant imagery in every movie he makes (Guy Ritchie is another director that suffers from this syndrome in a huge way, but that is a digression for another essay). Then there’s the iconography, all of which has become Snyder’s “visual brand” irrespective of the story or characters involved. It’s an … odd formula, to this viewer.
And I’m going to “go there” and say, that even Steven Spielberg is guilty of doing this, too. Selectively. In some situations. The second Spielberg enters the “event movie” territory, the marketing can just lean heavily on Spielberg, plus aliens/history/prestige/[insert adjective here] as if that equals successful marketing. Perhaps the studio thinks his audience knows what’s up. But do we? This can hurt the movie and, to an extent, these directors, because mystique and a name are different from refusing to tell your audience anything.
A good trailer makes me ask, “OMG, what happens next?”, not “Is this a perfume ad because I have no fucking idea what I’m watching?!?” Those are two separate questions. I love mystique as much as the next person, but the trailer withholds anything that makes me more inclined to see a film I haven’t already decided to see. For example, I legitimately didn’t even know what Avatar truly was about until my friends went and saw it. And I was like, “Oh okay, I was right: it’s Pocahontas with giant blue people. And you couldn’t show me more of the film in the trailer… why?”
If I don’t know what genre of movie a director has made, I haven’t gotten anything other than homework. I don’t want to dig through random fan theories that are basically stupid arguments on social media. Studios, directors, marketing professionals: You have the power to stop that shit and make the conversation about, you know, the movie.
At this point, I want to know who these trailers are even for. Because if “From Christopher Nolan” is enough to get viewers asses in a seat, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the marketing that sold the ticket. Nolan could announce a three-hour black-and-white IMAX movie about a man waiting for a train that may or may not represent time, death, memory, capitalism, or a sandwich, and there would be people online within four minutes calling it “the return of cinema.”
And this is exactly why the résumé thing annoys me so much. A résumé is supposed to get you the interview. It is not supposed to be the interview. If mine just said “Kay. You know her work. She has done things that are best experienced in IMAX,” whoever would be hiring me might have one or two follow-up questions. Something like, “What the fuck does Kay even do?”
Great. The studio sold a ticket to someone who was already refreshing the IMAX schedule. What about the rest of us? Because that is who a movie trailer should probably be trying to convince. I like movies. I like some Nolan movies. I love some Cameron movies. I like Spielberg, Villeneuve, Peele, all these people. Their names can get my attention, but they still have to tell me why this movie deserves my money.
