The teaser for the movie trailer, or “trailer trailers” — this new species of Hollywood marketing — is suddenly everywhere, hyping the first looks at movies like Prometheus, John Carter, The Avengers, Total Recall, and now the Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Rian Johnson sci-fi thriller Looper (embedded below). As the Los Angeles Times noted today, movie trailer releases have become massive events in their own right, so studio marketing machines have seized upon the idea of giving them mini-ad campaigns to build up interest for them.
So is this new promotional tool a boon, activating a fan base’s excitement and making general audiences feel more connected to what’s playing at the multiplex? Or is it an invasive strain of artificial hype that threatens to wipe out all other forms of entertainment life until we are left with only a feedback loop of advertising for advertising of advertising featuring commemorative t-shirts that are also advertisements?
Or, to put it in bean-counter terms, are they getting more people to go see movies? READ FULL STORY »
The New York Comic-Con kicks off today, but the festivities got off to an early start last night, when Hasbro hosted a preview of their 2012 slate of toys. Since the manufacturer has the rights to big franchises like Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man, we went in expecting some intriguing sneak peeks at next year’s superhero projects. But there was a nice surprise in store — or at least, a nice surprise if you’re the kind of excitable geek fetishist who used to save every issue of Star Wars Insider. (Guilty!) Read on… 
uper-secret espionage outfit run by Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. We might assume that future stories will track the time-tossed patriot’s attempts to adjust to the modern world, plus battle other old WWII foes that somehow, someway also managed to cheat death. (I really want to see Toby Jones’ Arnim Zola 
