THB #860: Trailer? I Hardly Know 'Er (Pt 1)

I am a big believer in trailers - and their cut-down variations in ads (online and on TV) - as the absolute #1 cause of people choosing to go to the theater to see movies. It is not “just thrown the trailer out and it all happens.” That would be a silly, wild overstatement. But in an era in which trailers are so accessible in so many ways, there is no better offering as to what the movie might be than the trailer (and its offshoots).

Yes, Netflix has a structure that is not as trailer driven. Absolutely. But Streaming has become (you hope!) a multiple choice quiz when you turn on the streamer, with a few exceptions. Getting people to buy tickets and go to a movie is, for the vast majority, a series of obstacles that need to be overcome, starting with awareness, building interest, and closing the deal (to vastly simplify).

As I went to the movies like a civilian (buying a ticket and watching trailers) 3 times in the last week, I have been thinking about the trailers I am seeing… even more so as we get to the end of summer. It occurred to me that I should do a column about the best and not-so-best trailers so far this year, using an August 1 release date as the cut-off. So this piece is not about what I think of the trailers for Dune III or Digger or Jumanji 3. It’s a look at the recent past. Three sections today: Rejected, Hard To Read, and The Indies. Three sections tomorrow, including The Best and The Worst trailer efforts of the year so far.

But let’s start with:

There was a lot of this going on in January. Amazon MGM took a somewhat complicated idea and made it remarkably clear in this trailer… but no one much cared, as it turned out. $24.4m domestic total. Part of this might have been the truthful, unavoidable reality that the film’s 2 movie stars were stuck in chairs in front of a green screen for the vast majority of the movie. No amount of action footage with others could change this.

Likewise, Paramount delivered a pretty accurate look at its horror entry about an ape who loses his mind and turns on his cute girl masters. The movie was significantly worse than the trailer, but an $11.2 million opening is about 50% too low to really expect much from word of mouth, even if it was better.

This trailer for March’s sequel to Ready or Not, which did only $29 million domestic in 2019, laid the movie out as honestly and cleanly as could be. Samara Weaving has another attractive blonde sister, Kathryn Newton. And they have added a parade of well-loved B-listers, including Elijah Wood, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Shawn Hatosy. Kill or be killed… again. $23 million this time. The movie is said to have cost $17 million and there was another $20 million international, plus post-theatrical money… so not a bomb at all. But…

This trailer starts with a non-specific suggestion of being John Wick-like… a hotel with killers. I can’t find a non-red-band trailer. (This one is from WB Canada, so somehow, YouTube allows it to be seen remotely.) Superviolent thriller. Sexy lead who fights with barely any clothes on and kicks everyone’s ass or splits their heads open or shoots them. What’s not to like? It’s no masterpiece and a bit repetitive, but it got me into a movie theater. But why was it released the weekend after Ready or Not 2? It’s fairly close - certainly by the trailer - to being the same movie. One is more outdoors and the other is all inside the hotel. So is it really surprising that it did half the opening? Half the overall domestic gross too. Less than half of the international, where I keep being told that race isn’t an issue. (Sorry… it is… a bigger one than here.)

Go do a Family Feud survey and ask what they think of when a movie is called “The Mummy” with or without a name attached, and 0% would tell you what Lee Cronin’s The Mummy turned out to be… or what was offered in the trailer. That said, the trailer was honest and as gross as it could be given the gross-out movie it was sent out there (“from the studio that brought you Weapons”… are you f-ing kidding?) to sell. But was it gross enough to attract an audience the size of many of the other horror gross-outs in the marketplace?

And a 3rd Warner Bros release with Evil Dead Burn. It’s trailer, like LCTM, is pretty honest about what it is. And be clear… both of these movies will make money. Not a ton, but with $91m worldwide for LC’s The Mummy and $62 million worldwide for Evil Dead Burn, they will get to black ink. And I don’t think it is fair to put them in the same category as Obsession or Backrooms or Weapons. But I do think not being able to get more than $5 distance from Markiplier’s homegrown/homesold Iron Lung is not thrilling. When you are in the same area, domestically, as such perceived misses as M3GAN 2.0 or The Woman in the Yard… I mean, the industry keeps turning… but you magic you are not. Cineverse did $54m domestic with Terrifier 3 and Neon’s Longlegs delivered $74m domestic and $128m worldwide.

On a much lighter note, I personally really liked the marketing on You, Me & Tuscany. And aside from being a bit less cooking-oriented and a bit more 12-pack oriented than the actual film, I would say this was an honest trailer that pretty much gave the potential audience what was thought to be wanted. A $7.7 million opening later - which was anticipated via analytics as it got closer and closer to release - was not a happy event. It was the 4th weekend for Project Hail Mary, so you can’t really blame that. And The Drama opened and held pretty well, but not taking enough out of the market to blame that. Audiences just refused to smell what the rock was cooking.

It’s been a remarkable ride for the Jackass jackasses. 26 years. God knows how many stitches and surgeries. This is the fifth Jackass movie, to go with years on television. And the trailer couldn’t be more on the nose. And the movie couldn’t be more on the nose. But it’s the first Jackass movie to do less than $55 million domestic and $80 million worldwide. So why did this one do $18m/$28m? Wasn’t the trailer.

We know that $37m domestic and $73m worldwide was not what this film was after. But trailers are most clearly felt on opening weekend. Is a $14 million opening in February in the year 2026 a good start or a bad start for a dramatic thriller for adults? Hmmm… there were 2 better openings in January, both for horror/thrillers. And they opened this against Wuthering Heights, pitting Hemsworth and Berry against then-Oscar-nominee Elordi and Robbie. The movie gave the Michael Mann ripoff energy that truly reflected the film. Critics liked it better than Wuthering. But Wuthering more than doubled the opening. Was this a classic “good marketing… bad date” situation?

Speaking of the bodice ripper, this next trailer smelled of money. The sexual tension is off the charts and both the male and female lead are wanted and desired. And the opening $33 million wasn’t bad, especially in February. But it wasn’t the home run that many (of us) expected. Second and third weekends both dropped over 52%, which for that size of launch is not great. The movie is a hit, as international almost doubled the moderate domestic success. But again, trailers open movies… they don’t assure legs. It Ends With Us, which is decidedly lesser in every aesthetic way, and even more so at the ambition level, did $100 million more.

People love this movie. Old people. Young people. Even middle-aged people.