THB #862: Trailer? I Hardly Know 'Er (Pt 3 of 3)

With some real pleasure, following Part 1 and Part 2, I now get to the Best of 2026. Let’s jump in…

The first month of the year, often a junkyard for new movies, was actually pretty good on the trailer side. Primate is terrible, but the trailer does the job of letting you know what it is. I only really saw the Iron Lung trailer in the process of doing this. Did it matter to the box office? I don’t know. But the movie is one of the big stories of the year. I was all about the trailer for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, but it didn’t turn the trick for potential ticket buyers.

But the best trailer of the month, which perfectly sets up the movie and led to the film being the top new release of the month (albeit on January 30), is Send Help. Dylan O’Brien makes an ass out of himself in mere seconds and Rachel McAdams plays the milquetoast. And then the glorious transition… which still manages not to give away the third act. Thanks!

A light month for big movies, with literally just 3 from the current Majors. Warners brought us the very intense and sexy Wutheirng Heights, which turned out to not be as “must see sexy” as expected… people showed, but not in droves. GOAT didn’t seem like much to me, but families starved on a new family movie for 2 months showed up for the film. And not yet fully Majored, Amazon MGM brought the Michael Mann wannabe Crime 101 with a. stylish trailer that never explained the title. Oops.

This top trailered movie got slapped by a lot of critics because of the politics of firing the lead of the fairly well liked Scream 6. But that’s politics and movies is movies. The trailer sets up the meta first kill and then reintroduces Neve Campbell’s Sydney and her daughter to the reboot. Add Courtney Cox and a bunch of ways to try to kill each other and you have an old school Scream party. And again, there are plenty of surprises in the movie that are not even hinted at in the trailer. Huzzah! Biggest grosser of the franchise with over $200 million worldwide.

Easy. In another month with 3 from the Majors, Amazon MGM flexed its muscles with a well built lead-up to Project Hail Mary. It started with a teaser trailer last summer. No hiding the fact that there will be an alien… though we don’t see much of it. Bur that surprised a lot of people.

But Amazon MGM knew that they basically had a hybrid of a one-man-show and buddy comedy. “Rocky” was not to be hidden. By the time we got to the final trailer, there was only a verbal set-up of the premise and “Rocky” is a full character. “I Would Die 4 U” by Prince becomes the background song. A buddy movie with a tearful ending. Perfect.

Yet another month of just 3 Major studio movies. And two of them kinda sucked and kinda flopped. So that put a lot of weight on Super Mario Galaxy Bros, which won the month domestically with a completely solid sequel campaign. But the mystery of the month was Michael. After multiple delays, it was finally opening. Was it going to deal with The Allegations or avoid them completely? How much of a tushy-kisser would it be? Were audiences willing to embrace Mr. Jackson (if he’s nasty)?

Lionsgate had domestic…

And Univesral had international…

And both did brilliant trailers.