Do spoilers matter in our movie marketing? Jonathan doesn’t seem to think so, and can’t wait to tell you all about it!
Hey Internet people! I’ve got a problem that I’ve been mulling over for quite some time. Do spoilers in trailers matter? Does a trailer revealing a particular plot point or showing the last moment from the last scene “ruin the experience” for you? For me, the short answer is no. The longer answer? I don’t know. My arc as a moviegoer has gone from trying to avoid anything about a movie until I see it in theaters to being completely ambivalent. I have to be careful around my more spoiler-cautious pals these days because I forget that they might want to go into a movie completely fresh.
So, what changed? When did it change? Could this trailer for ATOMIC BLONDE (which I love) be the culprit?
Or maybe it’s this trailer for ALIEN: COVENANT. It’s pretty much the two minute version of the entire movie. No plot twist left hidden!
Maybe it happened even earlier with this gem of a trailer:
Or heck, maybe even earlier with this trailer for PSYCHO:
Quality of movies aside, each of the above trailers did something that caught my attention and made me want to see them regardless of their spoilerish nature. With one major exception, these trailers got my butt in the theater. Was my enjoyment dependent on not knowing what happened or was it more about the elusive idea of “having a good time at the movies?” Would I have hated Alien: Covenant less if I hadn’t seen the trailer for it? Will being able to guess how ATOMIC BLONDE plays out based on the trailer dampen my obnoxious “squees” at Theron’s ultra-violence?
I mean, if we know how a movie’s going to play out, what’s the point of seeing it?
And that’s where you come in, people of the internet! As of writing this, I don’t really care if a trailer spoils anything for me. I watch ’em all and look for that one element that tells me I’m in good hands as a viewer, that I made the right choice for that 2-3 hour window. I’m looking for that “good time at the movies” and getting a little taste beforehand is no big whoop. Obviously, that’s just my opinion, but I’d like to hear yours. What’s the big freakin’ deal about spoilers anyway?
Sound off in the comments, on FB, or on twitter. Let’s discuss!
Writer/Creator/Web Guy for After the Hype. Created an animated fantasy webseries called Flagon. GM for Demon Dayz: An Actual Play Podcast, which you can conveniently find here on athpod.com