One Last Comic-Con Post Mortem - Trailer Troubles

It's now over a week since the convention ended, and I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about it. But if you'll indulge me, looking back on the weekend, I'm amazed at how much of the buzz completely passed me by. There were all these films and all these television shows that made an appearance at the convention, that I came out knowing absolutely nothing about. Pilots were screened for CW's "Nikita" and ABC's "No Ordinary Family," and we had so many movie trailer premieres, but I didn't see the majority of them until I got home and found clips in the Internet. In fact, I was struck by how stingy everyone was with their footage. When I was out on the exhibition hall floor, only a few of the booths were playing spots and trailers: "The Expendables," at the Lionsgate booth, "RED" at the Summit Entertainment booth, "Hawaii Five-O" at CBS, and the "Inception" trailer at what I believe was the Legendary Pictures booth. The biggest screen was at the "Star Wars" booth, playing clips from the "Clone Wars" cartoon and various video games.

I understand that these big entertainment companies were doing their best to keep the new footage exclusive, and prefer to only screen anything in panels, where they have more control over the environment. However, most of the properties already had some form of readily accessible promo in circulation, and I didn't see much of those either. "TRON" was one of the first panels on Thursday morning and screened its new theatrical trailer in Hall H while simultaneously releasing it online. I expected to see that trailer everywhere at the convention, maybe playing on an eternal loop with the special 2008 Comic-Con test footage over at the "TRON" booth. Or maybe in a special preview reel that could fill space between panels in some of the bigger rooms like Hall H and Ballroom 20. There's a yearly Comic-Con event known as Trailer Park, that took place on Friday in Hall H this year, that just shows movie trailers for an hour, and the new "TRON" trailer was replayed at that event at least twice. Still, you really had to go looking for it, which did maintain an aura of exclusivity to the footage, but at the same time meant that far fewer of the geek elite saw it than the marketers potentially could have reached.

There were lines running all over the exhibition hall floor, not to mention lines running all over the convention center, providing a ready and receptive audience for anything the big entertainment companies would have liked to show us. A few screens positioned overhead in strategic places, like they do in movie theater lobbies or theme parks, would have alleviated some of the boredom and drawn more eyeballs to some of these promos. Something like "TRON" probably wouldn't have benefited much since the anticipation was already running so high, but some of the smaller pictures like "Skyline" and "Battle: Los Angeles," that have been mostly lost in the shuffle, could have used the extra help. It strikes me as a wasted opportunity and explains why some industry watcher have declared that Comic-Con really doesn't help the films that are promoted there. I saw it first hand over and over. Attendees practically had to fight their way into position to view any footage shown at panels, which meant that only the die-hard fans got to see anything - and these are the people that marketers didn't need to reach.

I'm focusing on trailers and clips because they're generally the best way to convey a lot of information regarding what a movie or show is about in the quickest amount of time. There were plenty of other promotional material in attendance like prop displays and giveaways. The exhibition hall and the area surrounding the convention center were littered with cars (Green Hornet, Ghostbusters), statuary (Star Wars, Transformers, Nickelodeon, Marvel), costumes (Batman, Marvel, Star Wars), professional cosplayers (TRON, Green Hornet), and even a helicopter (Battle: Los Angeles), parked across the street. Massive posters and banners were everywhere, including gigantic "Skyline," "Scott Pilgrim" and "Red Faction" adverts plastered across the broad sides of whole buildings, dwarfing everything else. These were great for generating awareness, but I don't think the awareness translated to much interest.

A case in point: "RED" from Summit Entertainment was a major presence on the exhibition floor, had it's own panel in Hall H on Friday, and even had a full trailer playing constantly at the booth, where they were giving away free T-shirts. I didn't go to the panel, but I know I walked by that booth at least a half-dozen times during my three days there, and lingered long enough to seriously think about getting into the line for a T-shirt. I was honestly interested in finding out more about the movie, but I was never in quite the right position on the floor to watch the whole trailer, and could barely hear anything over the din of the exhibition hall anyway. The only impression I came away with was that it was some sort of action movie, and Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren were in it. The poster was a generic-looking thing with the title, "RED," and Bruce Willis featured prominently.

It wasn't until I was at home, catching up on the glut of online Comic-Con reports, that I came across a promotional image of Mirren and John Malkovich, each wielding an oversize firearm. That image sold me on the movie in two seconds flat and perfectly encapsulated what the story was about, something the Comic-Con promotional push completely failed to do. "RED" stands for "Retired, Extremely Dangerous," and follows a team of government agents in their golden years, who find themselves targeted by unknown enemies and have to take their bazookas and machine guns out of storage to dispatch them. I sought out the new trailer, which is over-the-top, hysterical, and looks way more fun than "The Expendables," which has a similar premise. Now "RED" has rocketed to the top of my list of most anticipated films for the fall. Other Comic-Con trailers that I thought looked promising include "The Goon," "The Walking Dead," and "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" - all viewed long after Comic-Con was over.

Marketing by the big studios may have taken over the convention, but all in all it's not very good marketing. I had friends who walked out of the "Sucker Punch" panel completely confused by the trailer, met multiple people with swag they couldn't identify the source of, and I still have no idea what "Red Faction" or "Skyline" are about despite those multi-story posters outside. I'm pretty sure one is a video game and the other is an alien invasion movie. The only films that seemed to benefit from Comic-Con were the ones people were already excited about: "Tron," "Scott Pilgrim," and "The Avengers." Right now the format of Comic-Com is such that I don't think it makes for a very good marketing event. There's too much going on and too many distractions, so the smaller films and shows that need the buzz tend to lose out. Is there still value to using it as a venue to launch trailers and promote new projects? Sure. But I also think Hollywood and some of the fans have grown to overvalue what happens there, and there's a lot of room for improvement.