Trailer Trash

I was surprised by Sony Pictures' recent attempt to suppress the "leaked" footage of Venom from the unfinished Spiderman 3 trailer. Why? Because I thought it was a hoax. Co-host Mike was the first to catch on to this.

If you saw the trailer before it was removed, then you might remember that most of the Special effects were unfinished. And when I say most, I mean all of them except for the scenes with Venom.

When trailers are made, the footage used is selected far in advance, giving the filmmakers time to finish all the effects that will go out with the trailer. After all, no one wants audiences to think that their movie has crappy FX because everything in their advertising materials is unfinished. If the Venom footage was not a part of the game plan for this second Trailer, why was it rendered to theatrical quality? You would think they would have held off making the clip in lieu of scenes that actually DID make the cut - especially from a production standpoint. Mark my words (and by my I mean Mike's originally), several years from now, this little episode will be outed as a marketing hoax engineered by some brilliant 'new media' ad man. The old saying goes, 'How do you make people want something? By telling them they can't have it.' You can find the video online if you look hard enough. It's viral now - just as the filmmakers most likely intended for it to be. Well played, Sony.

And while we are on the subject of trailers, watch The Simpsons Movie trailer below if you haven't seen it already.



What did you think? Well, I will tell you what I think, I think it wasn't a trailer. I think my interest in this film has suffered because Fox had advertised, and quite extensively so, that the clip was a trailer, when in fact it was just another teaser. The 'trailer' has no hint as to what the film is about, and more than half of it consists of fake footage (and a much-needed jab at the CGI talking animal cartoons of late). All of this is fine and dandy - if Groening and Co. wants to keep a tight lid on the film's plot, fine; if there is in fact no plot for the film whatsoever and the entire project is just an excuse to milk some big screen money from a 17 year-old franchise, that doesn't bother me too much either (so long as the end result is funny); but please don't show me repeated commercials for several weeks in advance that promise the premiere of a trailer only to dump a big, wet second teaser in my lap. It's very disappointing, the exact opposite of what anyone should want the trailer for a tent pole summer film to be.