As long as there have been movies, movie marketing has existed. An entertainment medium does not grow into one of the biggest industries without a lot of marketing, and multi-million dollar projects do not get financed without making deals with companies that want some promotion in return.

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Movie marketing can be intrusive - trailers interrupting TV shows, giant billboards cluttering city squares, ads plastered all over fountain cups - but it's shown no sign of going away. Still, amidst the onslaught of advertisement, movie marketing has its own unique quirks that it won't let die. As such, several things about modern movie marketing just don't make sense.

10 Trailers Seem To Take Up Almost As Much Time As The Movie

The Green Band Text That Precedes A Movie Trailer

Not too long ago, even a big-budget film like The Fellowship of the Ring might have as few as three trailers play before it in the theater. Now, trailers can add 20 to 30 minutes to a theater trip, giving audiences another factor to consider when estimating the runtime of a film.

These trailers are odd because most people no longer need to go to theaters to see them. Trailers are available online the day they drop, ready to be discussed on film blogs and comment threads. If a good movie trailer excites viewers, they can spread it far more quickly by sharing it online than by telling their friends to go to a theater and watch it.

9 Movie Titles Are Getting Unwieldy

spider-man avengers campus

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness may have a delightful title, but film bloggers probably wish it was just called Doctor Strange 2. In fact, as movies continue birthing sequels and being split into parts, their titles get longer and harder to track.

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As an example, the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, itself a fairly lengthy title, is going to be split into two parts: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part Two). Perhaps this is more a creative decision than a marketing one, but nevertheless, it makes remembering which film to watch next more difficult for audiences.

8 Trailers Spoil Everything

Hulk entering a battle arena in Thor: Ragnarok

As trailers get longer, their editors add more sequences in. In this cramming, trailers often show scenes and plot points that the filmmakers intended as surprises.

This is particularly common in comic book movies, with Hulk's reveal in Thor: Ragnarok, Harry's return in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and that one character's cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Perhaps the most egregious example in recent years is the reveal of Wolverine's appearance in X-Men: Apocalypse, which would have been a fantastic surprise to theatergoers.

7 Cross-Promotion Might Work, But It's Still Weird

product placement for The Chef's Pal during the Truman Show

A lot of money goes into movies, and some of that money comes from companies that want sponsorship deals and product placement. Showing James Bond drinking a Heineken is one thing, but Batman v Superman's promotions for Turkish Airlines are truly bizarre.

In one such promotion, Bruce Wayne speaks to the camera and invites the viewer to come to Gotham City with a flight on Turkish Airlines, an airline that only serves twelve airports in the United States. When the characters in the movie are promoting a product, it raises more questions about the world of film than audiences ever cared to ask.

6 Marketing Withholds Information The Audience Should Know

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have guns in 21 Jump Street

The trailers for Godzilla (2014) portrayed Bryan Cranston as the protagonist of the film, which thrilled fans of Breaking Bad at the height of its popularity. Unfortunately, Bryan Cranston's character is actually killed off well before the halfway point. While some trailers give away too much information about a movie, others just deceive the viewers.

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Downsizing was marketed as a high-concept comedy, which likely put off fans who might have enjoyed the surreal, philosophical drama. The marketing for 21 Jump Street leaned heavily on nostalgia for the original show, while the movie itself was meant to be entertaining as a standalone, and even joked about the idea of a TV show remake. Fortunately, good word-of-mouth and critical praise saved 21 Jump Street.

5 Post-Credits Scenes Don't Pay Off If You're Not Marvel

Deadpool in the post credits scene for his first movie wearing a bathrobe

Post-credits scenes have become a staple of modern big-budget movies. Deadpool even makes fun of the audience for sticking around for one. The MCU popularized this trend, and other studios have tried to replicate the MCU's success with their own post-credits scenes.

So far, however, only the MCU seems to have figured out how to make a post-credits scene entice the audience to watch the next movie. Meanwhile, Ghostbuster: Answer the Call, Justice League, X-Men: Apocalypse, The Wolverine, and Battleship all failed to deliver on the promise of their bonus scenes.

4 Movie Trailers Have Teasers Before The Trailer

bullet train film with brad pitt header

When the trailer for Bullet Train plays online, viewers will notice that the actual trailer is preceded by a quick countdown and an indecipherable flurry of clips. This is a trend that studios started implementing for trailers that autoplay. Since the viewer can skip the autoplayed trailer after five seconds or so, the "mini-trailer" that plays before the actual trailer ensures that the viewer at least gets a rushed, confusing glimpse at the film.

These pre-trailer teasers are usually more disruptive and disorienting than they're worth. In the Bullet Train example, so many images flash by with a countdown that even the most keen-eyed viewers will have no idea what they just watched. Fans will likely just skip the trailer to stop the noise.

3 So Many Movie Posters Look Exactly The Same

Poster with Doctor Strange, MJ, and Peter Parker, promoting No Way Home

Almost every official poster for a franchise film can be described as follows: a mix of characters' heads and tiny silhouettes with lots of blue and/or orange glowing elements surrounding them (or a blue/orange filter over the entire image). Each character also tends to look very serious.

RELATED: 10 Greatest Movie Posters Of All Time, Ranked

The floating head poster for the Star Wars special editions was exciting over 20 years ago, but today, these posters are getting formulaic. The nadir of the current trend in posters was when the Dark Phoenix and Aladdin posters drew mockery from Reddit for looking ridiculously similar to the Force Awakens poster.

2 Blockbusters Always Produce Merchandise For Kids, No Matter How Inappropriate

Lego Batcave for The Batman, with Riddler, Gordon, and Catwoman

The toy industry has gotten stricter with IP since the '80s and '90s - movies like Police Academy, Robocop, and The Toxic Avenger had action figure lines aimed at kids, after all. Sometimes, however, movies with decidedly kid-unfriendly material still get action figures, clothes, and Lego sets - and not just for the adult collector's market.

Star Wars: Rogue One, for example, is a very grim war movie in which most of the characters are killed off by the end. The Batman is possibly the darkest and most violent Batman movie yet. However, both films got merchandise for children, and the Lego Batcave made for the 2022 movie even comes with a toy of violent criminal Riddler.

1 Marketers Don't Understand Internet Humor

Morbius has his body open and is smiling as a background displaying the highest grossing films is behind him. Morbius is #1.
Morbius has his body open and is smiling as a background displaying the highest grossing films is behind him. Morbius is #1.

Back in 2006, Snakes on a Plane inspired waves of memes, parody videos, and songs. New Line Cinema thought this meant they had a hit on their hands and played along, adding the internet-concocted line "I am sick of these mother*****in' snakes on this mother*****in' plane!" to the movie and running a music video contest. Snakes on a Plane underperformed, probably because mocking it was more fun than going to see it. The industry should have learned its lesson with this and other failed attempts to pander to online audiences.

However, studios still jump on fleeting internet bandwagons like NFTs and Tiger King. In one of the most cringeworthy recent examples, the box-office bomb Morbius became a meme, with people jokingly praising the movie and mocking up fake video game tie-in covers. Sony, seeing the uptick in online mentions for Morbius, thought the film might have a second chance at life and re-released it in theaters. Unfortunately, it still bombed.

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