NATO imposes restrictions on movie trailers.

[Skitch]

Not sure where to put this, so apologies if it isn't worth its own thread, but this is a very big deal to me.


Well, it looks like you may start seeing shorter trailers for Hollywood films. That is, if the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) have anything to say about it. The group has spent months developing new guidelines that would shorten movie trailers, as well as other marketing techniques, having met with many of the studios in an attempt to create reasonable parameters.

Here's the rundown of the "voluntary" guidelines:

- Trailers can only be shown for a movie within five months of its release.

- Trailers can be no longer than two minutes -- 30 seconds shorter than is the norm.

- Trailers cannot be shown for a movie more than five months before its release. Nor can marketing materials be displayed inside of a theater for a film more than four months away from release.

- Distributors will be given two exemptions a year on both trailer length and marketing lead time.

- The new guidelines would apply to titles opening on or after October 1, 2014.

Of course, there are studio concerns when making this kind of implementation:

"Although the guidelines would be voluntary, studios fear that an exhibitor could cite the new policy in refusing to play a trailer that is longer than two minutes. They also worry that some theater owners will respond to the shorter time by simply running more trailers, many of which studios pay exhibitors to play."

I hope and pray this will help stop trailers completely ruining movies. Maybe not, but I think its a step in the right direction.

[Irish]

Voluntary guidelines + exemptions makes the whole thing moot.

It seems like a way to screw smaller films & distributors while giving big studio movies an out (because the theaters aren't crazy enough to put restrictions on, say, an Avengers 2 trailer.

I never minded the length of an individual trailer. I minded when they doubled and tripled the number of trailers you see. It gets tedious after awhile, sitting there waiting for the movie to start.

Skitch, what problems are you hoping this fixes?

PS: Always loves that the theatrical trade group chose "NATO" as their acronym. Totally goofy.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I don't mind the trailers, it's the fucking commercials that drive me nuts. Shorten those and I'll get excited.

[Skitch]

Skitch, what problems are you hoping this fixes?

Trailers that play like The Call with Halley Berry, which seemed to go beat for beat through act 1, 2, and 3 completely negating my desire to ever see it. If it had been a sneaky shorter trailer that stopped halfway through, they may have gotten my two bits just out of curiosity. Or the trailer for Dead Man Down (DO NOT WATCH IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM), which completely ruins a wonderful bit of creative editing in the first third of the movie in how the two characters come together. That trailer destroys that moment and makes it feel like a run-of-the-mill throwaway thriller, when the movie is actually better than that.


PS: Always loves that the theatrical trade group chose "NATO" as their acronym. Totally goofy.

Yeah I couldn't resist the flagrant misleading thread title. :lol:

[Skitch]

I don't mind the trailers, it's the fucking commercials that drive me nuts. Shorten those and I'll get excited.

Get rid of them all together! Holy annoying! But that will never happen.

[Skitch]

On the flipside of this argument, the Wachowskis made a six minute trailer for Cloud Atlas that didn't ruin the film and still left me wondering. Maybe the problem isn't length so much as uncreative trailer cutters? I'm hoping the restriction forces them to get better at creative trailers.

[Irish]

Trailers that play like The Call with Halley Berry, which seemed to go beat for beat through act 1, 2, and 3 completely negating my desire to ever see it. If it had been a sneaky shorter trailer that stopped halfway through, they may have gotten my two bits just out of curiosity. Or the trailer for Dead Man Down (DO NOT WATCH IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM), which completely ruins a wonderful bit of creative editing in the first third of the movie in how the two characters come together. That trailer destroys that moment and makes it feel like a run-of-the-mill throwaway thriller, when the movie is actually better than that.

I hear that. More and more I prefer going into a movie totally blind, or at least as blind as is possible these days.

Big third act spoilers in trailers is not a new problem, unfortunately. Awhile back I remember watching trailers for some classic or other and it pretty much gave away the entire movie. (This in a trailer that was forty or fifty years old.)

I don't know how to fix that problem. Studios always seem to want to oversell their product.


Yeah I couldn't resist the flagrant misleading thread title. :lol:

:D

[Skitch]

Have you seen the trailer for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes? Its PERFECT. There should be no more trailers for that movie. Gives a tease, a hint of premise, and nothing more.

[Irish]

That was a teaser, wasn't it? It was good, but -- I expect more trailers on that movie to get increasingly spoileriffic the closer we get to the release date.

[Ezee E]

There's about 15-20 minutes of previews before movies. With the lengths of Catching Fire, Wolf on Wall Street, and so on, we're in the theater over three hours. That's ridiculous. This is great news.

[Spun Lepton]

I love trailers. One of my favorite parts of going to the movies.

Commercials ... not so much.

[baby doll]

Trailers are commercials--only when you see a commercial for milk, it doesn't give away the whole friggin' plot.

[Skitch]

:lol:

[Spun Lepton]

Trailers are commercials--

BLASPHEMER! KILL THE HERETIC!

[Qrazy]

Realistically this isn't going to cut down on pre film viewing time at all. They are just giving themselves more time to run more commercials.

[Spun Lepton]

Realistically this isn't going to cut down on pre film viewing time at all. They are just giving themselves more time to run more commercials.

Cynical and probably true. Nicely done.

[Qrazy]

Cynical and probably true. Nicely done.

I'm just waiting for the day when it becomes completely inverted. We start a theater viewing with a short piece of fiction which is then followed by a two hour long car commercial. Oh wait nevermind, for a second there I forgot Michael Bay still makes movies.

[MadMan]

I like one or two previews before the movie. More than three is overkill.

[Sycophant]

Have you ever been in a theater and seen just one or two previews?

[TGM]

It's extremely rare, but it's happened on occasion, usually in front of smaller indy releases.

I would love for it to become the norm, tho. Having to sit through over 20 minutes of trailers gets real old real fast.

[Winston*]

Have you ever been in a theater and seen just one or two previews?

At festivals there are none, which can make ushering fairly stressful.

[Ezee E]

At festivals there are none, which can make ushering fairly stressful.

Festivals have opening messages, detailing of sponsors, and sometimes an introduction to give the ushers like 2 extra minutes.

But damn, when it goes dark, I don't know how they do it

[MadMan]

My local cheap theater only has one or two previews before films.

[D_Davis]

I'd rather see an end to the years-long preview and publicity cycles that surrounds so many genre films these days. First it's casting gossip, then production photos, then filmmaker diaries, then Comic Con preview, then commingsoon.net, then the comic book, then the toy, then the video game, then the three minute trailer, then the nerd rage. By the time a movie actually comes out, I'm usually sick to death of it.

[Skitch]

I don't care about amount of trailers or how many they show before the film. I just want them to stop giving away every single plot point and character discovery.

[Derek]

My local cheap theater only has one or two previews before films.

Is this a first-run theater or $3 theater that gets movies 4-6 weeks after they're released?

[MadMan]

Is this a first-run theater or $3 theater that gets movies 4-6 weeks after they're released?Its 5 and yeah its second runs. However they do get some films that the big chains don't feature.

[baby doll]

I'd rather see an end to the years-long preview and publicity cycles that surrounds so many genre films these days. First it's casting gossip, then production photos, then filmmaker diaries, then Comic Con preview, then commingsoon.net, then the comic book, then the toy, then the video game, then the three minute trailer, then the nerd rage. By the time a movie actually comes out, I'm usually sick to death of it.That would be a terrible blow to the fanboys who loves hype and consumerism more than actual films.

[Derek]

Its 5 and yeah its second runs. However they do get some films that the big chains don't feature.

I only ask because I believe they have less restrictions on how many/what trailers they have to play before each feature. Those joints will usually squeeze in as few trailers as possible if it helps them add an additional showtime.

[MadMan]

Well based on the times I've been to my local cheap theater they only use one or two trailers before the film because that's probably all they can get. They do pride themselves on no commercials which is a nice touch.