Week 10 Blog Stalk

So this weeks Blog Stalk is really a platform for inspiring some random thoughts.
On my usual creep around of the Blogs this week, I came to Jim’s post about marketing and campaigning films, in which he talked about The Amazing Spiderman 2’s trailer.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, there it is ^.
So Jim pointed out that there is a hell of a lot of storyline and visuals within the trailer, and he hints towards the idea that maybe Sony have released a little too much.
Do I think Jim is right? Hell yeah.
Do I have a problem with it? Not so much.
The way I see it, especially with Comic-Book adaptions, people already know the storyline. Deep down, hidden in the nerdiest part of us all, we all knew what was going to happen, and how the story line was going to play out. (What i’m trying to say is that no one can use the excuse the trailer spoiled it for me – you know how spidey works, don’t you go lying to me). Not a very solid argument, I know..
The thing is, to watch this 2.40 long clip, I had to go search for it. The TV adds were never this long, all averaging around 30 or so seconds. So if I’m unhappy that i’ve been given too much footage? Stiff shit for me, I was the one who went and and looked for it.
What I do have a problem with though, is that searching for the 30 second long alternative can be frustrating and futile (seriously, do people even upload them to youtube??), because at the end of the day, while my concerns may be different from Jim’s, if I am interested in watching a movie I know nothing about, I don’t want the whole story line given to me.  (Rom Coms and 90’s films seem to be the biggest culprits in giving away everything in trailers). So officially count me as half in, half out in this issue.

While i’m on the subject of superhero movies (seriously i could go on all day about this), I came across something that had me feeling pretty crazy. Check it out.

So as you can see, here are some stats from opening weekends of Marvel movies. (taken from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?view=openings&id=marvelcomics.htm&p=.htm )

So because it’s probably the best movie made (little biased here) The Avengers is sitting nicely up the top on over $207 MILLION. Stan Lee, you are amazing.
Anyway, this is the trailer for The Avengers;

With over 20 million views, this video is about the same length of Spidey’s trailer (2.05).. It’s got the same elements – villains, good guys… basic idea of what’s going on.. But, going back to what Jim was saying, it does have noticeably less dialogue and description of what the story will be about, focusing mainly on the action scenes to drag people in (seriously though, this movie didn’t even need a trailer, it couldn’t not be awesome).
Second on the list is Iron Man 3. It’s style is similar to spiderman 2, almost giving away the entire plot line – but it does have it’s tests we, as an audience didn’t see coming… and did it stop people from spending money to go and see it? Not likely.

So I guess, at the end of this Blog stalking rant, I do see where Jim is coming from – in the excessive advertising point of view, and how some people may not like it. But then again, they’ve had to go and search for these long trailers, and besides, how else do we know if we’ll like it? My problem isn’t with the footage given. Just give us an obvious alternative – a shorter trailer.
(I’m all for the spoilers though – it’s long trailers for me!)

Lover you long time Marvel