Movie trailers have been famous for spoiling the very movies they advertise for decades now. From “Con Air” and “Cast Away” giving away their endings to “Goldeneye” and “The Negotiator” giving away their twists, and don’t even get started on the “Terminator” trailers.
Recently the trailers for “The Invisible Man” have been accused of revealing too much of the plot. Both the trailer and the film’s director Leigh Whannell in interviews recently indicated they wanted to make it clear upfront that this film would not use the old ‘is it all in the protagonist’s head’ trope which has become commonplace.
Even so, it’s still being seen as an issue by some fans and one asked Blumhouse founder Jason Blum why the trailer showed so much of the plot and didn’t just tease the film. Blum was straight upfront with his answer on Twitter, with the blame being put on the bounty of entertainment options available:
“I wish we didn’t have to do that but there is almost no other way to tear people away from Netflix and all the great choices they have at home. So you have my sincerest apologies and maybe in future your idea to watch our trailers after you’ve seen our movies is a good one!
There is one key big scene NOT included in trailer and that is thanks to Leigh Whannell I wanted it in and so did the studio but we kept it out for Leigh. So all you trailer haters can thank him for the trailer not giving away even more.”
The tactic seems to have worked though with “The Invisible Man” opening to a very strong $29 million – doing increased business in a way that’s indicating very good word of mouth and also being cited as an example of the fallacy of the ‘go woke go broke’ argument.
