Half the battle in the film industry is promoting your movie. The marketing machine just grows bigger and bigger with blockbusters routinely releasing multiple teasers, TV spots, trailers and even teasers for trailers. Good word of mouth on opening weekend is important, sure, but securing pre-sales and filling the cinemas is key.
So editing together a really compelling trailer is super important. Sometimes a studio will nail it, and make a great trailer for a movie which turns out to be terrible. These are the times it went the other way and a top-class movie was nearly undermined by rubbish promo.
1. Rogue One
"This is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel!" We certainly rebel against this awkward, cheesy trailer that initially did not bode well for the first of the Star Wars standalones. Gareth Edwards' movie went through rigorous reshoots by the time it made it to our eyes, and fortunately some of the first trailer's clangers didn't make it to the final cut.
2. Dredd
Though it didn't make enough money to bag a sequel, despite the fans clamouring for it, Pete Travis and Alex Garland's vision of the future was gritty and dynamic and featured great turns from Karl Urban in the title role and Lena Headey as his nemesis Ma-Ma.
Not that you'd notice from the trailer though, which looked cheap, cheesy and featured chewy one-liners which would have felt more at home coming out of Sly Stallone's mouth. "Judgement time!"
3. The Matrix
Given that The Matrix was one of the most visually stunning and dynamic action movies of its time, the trailer doesn't half go out of its way to make the movie look boring.
In a trailer that's 150 seconds long, 135 of them are devoted to boring conversations and stuff about doing your job and going to parties. Only in the last 15 seconds do you actually get a proper look at the signature bullet-time moves it's famous for. Like Keanu says at the end, 'Woah'.
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
We love 'Mr Blue Sky' by ELO as much as the next person but we strongly feel this trailer undersells Michel Gondry's touching treatise on love and loss. Instead, the way this footage is cut, you'd come expecting a knockabout Jim Carrey comedy. Even the bit in the trailer where he's actually screaming, "Can you hear me? I don't want this any more!" is totally played for laughs. Weird.
5. Batman Begins
A bit of a cheat this one, but we couldn't leave you without sharing this hilariously misguided TV Spot for the first part of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.
The massive over-emphasis on Katie Holmes' character and the Nickelback soundtrack means we can barely tell where Batman begins and Dawson's Creek ends...
