Trailers are meant to tease viewers in order to spike their interest in an upcoming movie. However, sometimes the trailers tend to give most of the plot (or crucial elements of it) away. It’s even worse when the upcoming movie is a sequel and the previous one ended on a cliffhanger.
The fault is normally on the studio’s marketing team and not really the director. The marketing team tries its best to make sure that there is enough fan interest. But by doing this, they accidentally go overboard and not only mess with the director’s vision but also the viewer’s experience.
Here are trailers that spoiled the story.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Kingsman: The Golden Circle wasn’t as huge as the first movie. Perhaps it’s because a few spoilers were accidentally inserted in the trailers. In the first movie, Harry Hart (Colin Firth) gets a bullet in the face courtesy of the villain Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson). It’s assumed he’s dead because Eggsy takes his place in the organization.
Well, not at all. He is still alive. It would have been better to find out about this in the movie. But the trailer gave us the big reveal. As expected, director Matthew Vaughn didn’t like it. When asked about it by IGN, he said: “The thinking about that was stupidity, to be blunt. I begged the studio not to reveal it. Because it’s the whole driving force of the first act and if you didn’t know that scene it would’ve made the whole audience gasp.”
Charlie’s Angeles: Full Throttle (2003)
It was weird how the movie took too long to reveal the villain yet the trailer had already done it. Good action movies take a while before revealing the person calling the shots behind the curtains. In most cases, this person is usually controlling the other junior villains.
In Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the viewer goes through the first two-thirds of the movie without being introduced to the villain. This is kinda pointless given that the trailer had already introduced the former angel known as Madison (Demi Moore) as the villain.
Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
There were a couple of trailers for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice but the second one was the biggest culprit for spoilers. Sadly, it was also one of the most-watched trailers of the year with over 30 million viewers. So, everyone went to the theater knowing most of the things that would happen.
In the trailer, Lex Luthor introduces Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne to each other before manipulating them to fight one another. Doomsday also shows up because we know Superman has to die and Batman isn’t going to kill him. And in a scene that should really have been kept as a surprise, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) arrives to help.
Terminator: Salvation (2009)
Before 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, the franchise had been really struggling. No installment after Terminator: Judgement Day had been impressive. And despite having Christian Bale fresh from his outstanding performance in The Dark Knight, 2009’s Terminator: Salvation was poor as well.
The trailer did look very good but it also gave away the fact that Marcus (Sam Worthington) was a human-machine. He didn’t even know it himself at first but the trailer somehow reminds you that he is. In fact, by the end of the trailer, we are even shown part of his face peeled off to reveal the robot inside.
Shutter Island (2010)
Shutter Island is considered the most forgettable of Martin Scorsese’s movies. This adds more weight to Robert De Niro’s side in the debate of which actor serves the director better. Scorsese is known to collaborate with both De Niro and DiCaprio frequently but his movies with De Niro tend to be more iconic.
For Shutter Island, Paramount Pictures decided to structure the trailer like a synopsis instead of a teaser. The trailer accidentally made it known that the psychiatric patient Rachel Solando’s disappearanc wasn’t the main mystery. The mystery was the 67th patient.
Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
The previous film had seen Gandolf The Grey falling to his death after battling the Balrog. It was a huge shocker because Gandolf was really crucial to the story. But that didn’t mean the franchise couldn’t go on without him. Fans were hoping to see newer developments then the impossible happened.
When the trailer for The Two Towers was released, Gandolf The Grey was now Gandolf The White. He had returned from the dead, bigger and better with the goal of destroying the One Ring. Couldn’t the marketing team have hidden this plot twist at least?
The Amazing SpiderMan 2 (2014)
There had been rumors that Peter’s love interest Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) would die. Sony Pictures must have been aware of this, so the marketing ought to have at least tried to suggest that Emma survives. But they failed to do that. Is it a surprise that Spiderman needed a reboot after this movie?
The trailer went on to show Stacy falling after Spiderman’s webbing broke during his battle with the Green Goblin. Fans were still left to wonder whether Spiderman manages to catch her or not, but given the rumors and the trailer’s confirmation of her fall, it was obvious that she was going to die.
Friday The 13th (1980)
Slasher films are only enjoyable when you can’t tell who is going to get killed next. Sadly, the makers of Friday The 13th didn’t give us this luxury. The trailer which has a voiceover—as was the case with 80s trailers—shows the death of every character chronologically. There’s no guessing what will happen by the time you are watching the movie.
Luckily for Paramount Pictures, the movie was so good that it became a cult classic in the horror genre. Jason also became one of the most liked horror movie characters v(despite his mother actually being the killer in the first film) and as a result, numerous sequels were made in which he was brought back from the dead.
Funny People (2009)
This is one of those rare trailers where after watching it, you didn’t really need to see the movie. It’s like being given told how all the matches in Wrestlemania will end and being asked to watch it still.
For Funny People, all the best jokes are thrown into the trailer. George (Adam Sandler) is also revealed to be a man with a terminal illness. Does he beat it? You don’t need to wait for the movie to tell you because the trailer does. And what does he do after that? He tries to win the heart of his dream girl.
Jurrasic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Producer Colin Trevorrow—who also directed the first film—wasn’t too happy about the spoilers. In an interview with io9, he revealed how he was disappointed about the trailers revealing crucial scenes: “It feels like marketing is constantly feeling the need to make the case. I would definitely have preferred those images not be seen, but, if you haven’t watched the trailers, just go see the film.”
The trailers revealed plenty of things, including the fact that there would be another child protagonist, a volcanic eruption was about to destroy Isla Nubar and that Owen and Claire would try to save the dinosaurs. Hopefully, in 2050, we’ll get a behind-the-scenes biopic about the clash of filmmakers and studio marketers called Marketers Vs Producers. Bad name? Well, Ford v Ferrari worked.
