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Movie trailers give away too much, fans and actress complain
A few months ago director Robert Zemeckis found himself in trouble with filmgoers and critics for giving too much of the story away in the trailer for his suspense thriller, What Lies Beneath.
Now Zemeckis is in more hot water over the trailer for his big Christmas movie, Cast Away, in which Tom Hanks plays a Federal Express employee who finds himself stranded on a desert island after his plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean.
Internet Web sites have been buzzing with complaints from fans incensed that the theatrical trailer for 20th Century Fox’s biggest Christmas release tells far too much. And they have an ally in actress Helen Hunt, who plays the woman Hanks leaves behind in the new movie.
“I love Cast Away,” Hunt says. “I loved it when I read it. I loved making it. I loved the freedom of working in a supporting role and I loved working with Tom and Zemeckis. It was a gentle, creative, wonderful experience.”
What she doesn’t love is the trailer.
“I hate the trailer,” she says with angy directness.
After she had screened the movie, the trailer was shown to her and she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Hunt’s beef isn’t only with the fact that the trailer gives away plot surprises. She is also dismayed that moviegoers have been given an advance peek at some remarkable visuals.
“There are images I have never seen in a movie before, and that’s a rare thing.”
Hunt argues that to show such images in advance will spoil their later impact. “I tell my friends: ‘Close your eyes. Please prepare for the experience of this movie without seeing those images.’”
Hunt has made her feelings known to the studio and the producers, including Zemeckis. “So how much is my vote worth? Zero!”
Meanwhile, Zemeckis continues to defend the trailers for the two movies, reiteRating oneis contention that the core moviegoing audience — males under 25 — approach a movie the same time they approach a hamburger stand: they want to know what they’re getting before they plunk down their money.
“There’s a McDonald’s on every street corner and none of them is losing money,” Zemeckis says by way of illustration. “Nobody’s going to the Mom and Pop restaurant and taking a chance.”
He admits he doesn’t like watching trailers, that he prefers to go and see a movie as “a pure experience” and maintains that most film buffs feel the same way.
“But Americans want to know what they’re going to get for their money,” he insists. “That’s just the way it is.”
Zemeckis admits that once upon a time filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock excelled in making trailers that gave nothing of the movie away — he cites Psycho as an example — but says filmgoers and studios wouldn’t stand for that approach today.
Zemeckis points out that the studios in particular have such sizable investments in movies like What Lies Beneath or Cast Away that they consider “a trailer that gives away everything” a necessary marketing strategy to bring in the core moviegoer.
But that doesn’t mean Zemeckis likes the situation.
“I think we’re between a rock and a hard place.” He admits he’s envisaged the possibility of releasing a movie without a tell-all trailer, but if he does that “I know that people aren’t going to go.”
On the other hand, if he made a movie for $5 million or $10 million rather than the $80 million it cost to bring Cast Away to the screen, he might be able to deal with the trailer situation because there would be fewer dollars at stake.
“The way around it is not to spend so much money. If I can make a movie for a really inexpensive price, I can take more risks,” he says.
“And I’m thinking about this sort of thing very, very seriously.”
© The Ottawa Citizen
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