Study: Half of Moviegoers Think Trailers Give Away All the Best Scenes

The Hollywood Reporter ^ | May 1, 2013 | Rebecca Ford

[EveningStar]

For the past several months, trailers for this summer's most anticipated films have been hitting the web on a nearly daily basis.

But the trailers aimed at getting moviegoers excited for these big-budget releases may be showing off a bit too much.

[Sloth]

The only way an Adam Sandler movie trailer could trick me into seeing it is if it somehow concealed the fact that Adam Sandler was in it.

(Well, that’s not totally fair — I liked ‘The Wedding Singer.’)

[Tanniker Smith]

Best trailer I ever saw -- in the sense that I had absolutely zero interest in seeing the movie and did a complete 180 and knew I had to see it -- was Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl.

coming after the Country Bear Jamboree, you had to wonder what Disney was thinking. Then Geoffrey Rush stepped out into the moonlight and said, "You better start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one." And then it got real.

[xrmusn]

Their is one that is out there now...something about a ne’er do well brother visiting a straight laced brother (or sister) and one of the ‘better moments’ is when they show a teen age girl with cake on her face and a voice screaming in the backgroung “YOU GAVE HER SUGAR”? followed by same girl with cake still on face and a quart of ice cream in her hand.
She yells out “You told us that yogurt was the same as ice cream”.
Not all that funny but conjuring up the ‘scene’ around it is good...almost like ‘watching’ Radio.

[Borges]

and Fight Club is just as much fun on multiple viewings.

[dfwgator]

Generally the funnier the trailer, the more unfunny the entire movie will be because they tend to show the only funny scenes in the trailer.

[discostu]

When you know the gag on that one so many scenes change so dramatically. It’s a completely different movie, actually a much better movie.

[GSWarrior]

It seems the nearer to the release date of a movie and after its release date that more is revealed in the trailer.

[x]

A lot of trailers I’ve seen lately give the whole story.

Maybe. I know that the previews for the television series "Mad Men" show a lot of "on-screen drama" -- doors slamming, snarling, knowing looks, raised voices, and threats -- but notoriously don't give any clue as to what will actually happen next week.

I wonder if there's a psychological or brain science dimension. A preview might show me everything that's in a movie, but in such a way that I'm more bowled over by the sheer experience of the thing and not working to put the pieces together.

[rabidralph]

Here you go.