The Spoilerific World of Movie Marketing

The Spoilerific World of Movie Marketing

Spoilers are everywhere. They're in your car. They're in your homes. They're on your DVD cases.

"Oh, but they're not spoilers!" I hear the movie studios cry. "It's just marketing to make people want to see the movie!"

Is it though? Imagine this. It's a world without consistent movie marketing such as internet TV spots, posters, on-set images, casting rumours and speculations. You head off to the cinema to see, oh I don't know, Spider-Man 2 (2004). Suddenly the trailers start; the Warner Bros. logo appears covered in bats - what could this possibly mean? A familiar actor's voice (Liam Neeson, perhaps?) teases the identity of the movie via voice-over: "Tell us, Mr Wayne - what do you fear?"

Mr Wayne? Isn't that...? And then it all makes sense, and you realise with a gleeful shock that Warner Bros. have somehow created a reboot of the Batman franchise, with none other than Christopher Nolan at the helm. You're so excited that you lean forward on your seat as the rest of the dark trailer unfolds, concluding with those teasing trailer words.

"Coming soon."

Now you're more excited for this than you ever were for the movie you're about to watch. That's the magic of watching a trailer for the first time in a cinema - it hits you like a wall of glee. You were unaware that this movie was even being made, let alone coming soon!

Let's snap back to 2013. Now, we're consistently bombarded via TV and online media regarding potential casting rumours, potential directors, new trailers, new posters, brand new speculative theories and confirmed cameos. The big reveals in the mega blockbusters are all made clear months (sometimes years) before the movies are even released thanks to the over-extensive promotional material.

Sticking with the Batman theme, take this trailer for last year's The Dark Knight Rises for example, which came out in July 2012 - but the trailer was released in November 2011!

This trailer, despite only being two minutes long, managed to give away rather a few of the movie's most awesome reveals. Here's a quick check-list:

1. The scene in which hooligans and criminals invade the houses of the upper class.
2. Bane beats the living crap out of Bruce Wayne at some point - "When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die."
3. The stadium scene, arguably one of the most shocking moments in the movie - or it would have been if the trailer hadn't given it away.
4. The Bat - it would have been awesome for Warner Bros. to keep Batman's flying vehicle a secret until its reveal in the movie's climax. 

Unfortunately, however, the line between marketing and spoiling is becoming blurred significantly. The recent promotional material for upcoming Star Trek sequel Star Trek Into Darkness have involved three (three!) full length trailers with a fourth on the way, along with hundreds of posters like this one below which was released today.

The poster shows Spock (Zachary Quinto) inside a volcano - a huge set piece which no doubt cost millions to film. Surely it's better to leave something like this as a fantastic surprise? Perhaps - there are arguments for the contrary, but given that the trailers have already given away the identity of the movie's villain, the opening "terrorist event" which will set the basis for the plot AND the fate of one particular cast member, haven't we already seen enough to at least understand the basis of the movie? It's terribly distracting during the movie to think "Oh that bit was in the trailer. So was that. Oh, I remember that bit."

Sometimes less is more. If we loved the original Star Trek, we're probably going to see the sequel - there's simply no need to bombard us with these endless promotional clichés. There should always be trailers, promotional images and posters for the movies, but when it gets to the point where we're getting on-set images, pictures of set designs and even a full list of cast members  almost 2 years before the movie is released (which is the case for the currently filming X-Men: Days of Future Past), it's time to take a step back and consider how much is left to purely enjoy in the movie.

Perhaps the fans are to blame, too. Take the TV show Doctor Who, which follows the adventures of a time-travelling alien who has the ability to change his appearance when mortally wounded - which of course allows the show to continue for a potentially endless run. When an actor gets tired of playing the role, the BBC simply hire a new one and make The Doctor regenerate into a new appearance like so...

The problem is that as soon as one Doctor is announced, fans are already looking forward to who will be the next one - as soon as Matt Smith was cast to take over David Tennant in the role of The Doctor, viewers were quickly speculating regarding who would be the next one! 

Really, it's a double edged sword. As long as spoiler-hungry fans continue to demand more and more info on movies that aren't even in pre-production yet, the studios will continue to pour out information in the hope that said fans will scream "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" 

Either that or every single trailer comes with a siren blaring "SPOILER ALERT" for a good twenty minutes before it starts.