The trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Django Unchained will premiere before Prometheus.

Django Unchained stars Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio. It tells the story of a freed slave who exacts revenge on the slave owner who stole his wife.

Variety’s Stuart Oldham reported via his Twitter account that the first teaser trailer for the highly-anticipated film will run in front of Ridley Scott’s science fiction movie.

Prometheus, set in the same universe as Scott’s Alien, stars Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender. It focuses on a human expedition on an alien planet that goes horribly awry.

The marketing campaign for Prometheus has consisted of a series of trailers, featurettes and viral videos featuring stars from the movie including Fassbender and Guy Pearce.

Django Unchained is due for release on December 25.

Prometheus comes out on June 8.

A teaser trailer for Anchorman 2 will play before The Dictator, according to reports. The Sacha Baron Cohen spoof is released this coming Wednesday (May 16) and, according to Collider, the minute and a half trailer features a reunited Channel 4 news team (without Veronica Cornerstone) talking about their return.

A source told the film website: “Just got out of a screening of The Dictator. There is an Anchorman 2 teaser attached featuring the Channel 4 news team (minus Veronica) stating how excited they are to return… a concept that Brick seems to have a hard time with.”

While the principal photography on the film isn’t expected to begin until February 2013, the trailer does tease the movie’s potential title. According to Collider’s source the trailer’s screen title read: Anchorman: The Legend Continues.

Adam McKay, who wrote and directed the first film, is currently working on a script with Will Ferrell. McKay has recently worked on ‘The Dictator’ and tweeted his followers informing them of the “treat”.

IGN’s proud to debut the brand new, ass-kickin’ trailer for The Expendables 2! Here’s Hale Caesar himself, Terry Crews, with more!

Bookmark this page to come back and watch our exclusive trailer debut for The Expendables 2 this Thursday, May 3, at 10am PST!

In The Expendables 2, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his team of badass mercs — Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren),Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), along with newcomers Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) — seek payback when a mission they’re on for Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) goes wrong and one of their own is killed. Needless to say, havoc and bloodshed ensue. The stellar cast also includes action legends Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger!

The Expendables 2 opens August 17.

U.S. audiences need to get to the theater early when they head out to see Marvel’s The Avengers. There is the obvious challenge of having to find a good seat in a theater packed for one of the most anticipated movies of 2012 – but there’s also the added reward of being able to see the new trailers for both The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man to consider. By the time Avengers actually starts up, fanboys in the theater will likely be whipped into a comic book movie frenzy.

The news that Amazing Spider-Man is premiering a new trailer was revealed on G4′s Attack of the Show by director Marc Webb. No details of the trailer or preview footage have been revealed yet, but it is speculated that it could in fact hit the Interwebs (no pun) before it reaches the big screen. Check back here at Screen Rant next week for a chance to see what new and epic material both Dark Knight Rises and Amazing Spider-Man have to offer in their new trailers.

How to sell meta-horror and why monkey marketers should stay in the basement.

The Cabin in the Woods, the recent ‘meta-horror’ co-written by Avengers helmer Joss Whedon, is a riot but a lot of people complained the trailer gave too much away.

Are these angry calls fair? Well, sort of, but as the film’s whole selling point is its postmodern play with horror conventions – in this case a pair of corporate suits setting up the deaths of a group of college-age archetypes in a remote cabin – it’s pretty much unavoidable to give that a mention in the trailer. Otherwise you risk making everyone think your witty horror movie is the standard kids-in-the-forest-getting-picked-off-by-mutant-hillbillies template that we’ve seen a million times before.

Movie trailers are always a challenge for the studios. Figuring out what to reveal and what to hide, and what has to be done to hook Joe Cinema Goer, are all serious questions that could mean the difference between making a billion dollars at the box office or pulling a John Carter and writing off the GDP of a small European country.

Unsure of how to sell The Cabin in the Woods, the Studio Boss may well have ventured down into the basement to visit the Marketing Chimp, recently promoted from the writing team to the publicity department when he couldn’t bear the thought of taking a scripting gig on Die Hard 5.

The Marketing Chimp sits behind a mahogany desk bought at auction from the set of Anchorman. He’s wrapped tightly in a silk dressing gown and puffs gently on herbal cigarettes as he tries to fit a monocle onto his small simian eye. The Studio Boss bows down before him and explains the challenge – how to sell The Cabin in the Woods to Joe Cinema Goer.

Considering the options, Marketing Chimp smiles wryly: “It’s a shame it’s not a romantic comedy. That way you could just paraphrase the entire story in a two-and-a-half-minute timeframe. Joe Cinema Goer doesn’t care about the resolution in those movies. The trailer can even show the guy and the girl kissing at the end.

“It’s all about the journey in rom-coms, the advice of the ethnically-diverse Best Friends, the various comic antics that the guy gets up to as he tries to impress the girl, and then The Serious Bit towards the end when a Hard Truth sort-of-but-not-really threatens to get in the way of their love.”

Studio Boss clarifies that this doesn’t help for a story about college kids suffering grisly fates in a remote cabin in the woods.

Marketing Chimp raises a simian hand to calm his boss. “Depending on the calibre of your cast, you have the option in the trailer of focussing on their performances; gentle, subdued moments that offer a window to their raw dramatic talent. Lingering shots of expressive faces and-”

He’s abruptly cut off as Studio Boss points out, in increasing desperation, that this project doesn’t have Shakespearean ambitions. Perhaps the marketing should be gently steered away from focusing on the human condition.

Marketing Chimp nods quickly, taken aback by the Studio Boss’ sudden outburst. “Why not make some script changes and have the whole thing more action-oriented? That way you can just kick out a trailer that has a barrage of images – very popular these days when there’s no real story to speak of.

“Things blowing up, characters in peril for unspecified but thrilling reasons, a single fleeting shot of people kissing to imply at least a few seconds of romance, and shots of guns being cocked with the all-important click-clack sound effect to show the villains are Very Serious and quite well trained. Finish it off with an extended shot of some massive CGI monstrosity about to wreak havoc on something as the alpha male offers a pithy one-liner…?

“Supernatural horrors are even easier. Shots of a Ouija board doing weird things, maybe a creepy girl in a night-gown slowly pointing a decomposing finger at something we can’t see, and a few shots of scared people in their pyjamas levitating on the ceiling.”

The Studio Boss stares at the chimp sitting opposite him and suddenly feels a pang of guilt for promoting a monkey rather than the UCLA marketing graduate. He wordlessly rises and leaves the room; time to seek advice from something further up the evolutionary chain.

Source: The Toronto Sun

When a corporation tries to sell you something, that’s advertising. When your friends and acquaintances try to sell you something on behalf of a corporation — without even realizing they’re doing it — that’s viral marketing.

And it’s a scary sort of genius.

Prometheus, the upcoming Ridley Scott sci-fi flick set in the same universe as the Alien movies, is doing everything right when it comes to generating interest in the film, in theatres this June.

From a faux 2023 TED talk with robotics visionary Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) to a steady drip-feed of information about the movie’s spacecraft, fans are going bonkers with each cleverly presented new nugget of information. The latest, released this week, served as an introduction to the “David 8″ — the robotic character played by Michael Fassbender.

Viral movie marketing works because it comes from novel sources. Instead of being fed a message in the form of a commercial or trailer, we’re turned onto a new movie by word of mouth, or by getting glimpses of behind-the-scenes material, or even by mind-bending games. It’s all about engagement.

Here are a few unusual examples of viral movie marketing, and why they worked so well.

The “leak” (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)

There’s been much speculation as to whether The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo‘s leaked theatrical trailer was anything of the sort. While seemingly shot on a handycam in a cinema and then uploaded to YouTube, experts say it had the hallmarks of a deliberate studio job intended to drum up interest.

Why it worked: Because audiences were seeing something they didn’t think they were allowed to see.

The scare (The Last Exorcism)

(Warning: Contains strong language)

The studio behind the 2010 fright flick The Last Exorcism plugged into then-popular cam-chat site Chatroulette with footage of a sexy-looking girl, who transformed into a freaky, possessed demon chick. After the girl screamed and lunged at the screen, the address for the film’s website popped up.

Why it worked: If you thought you were webcamming with a girl who was about to take her top off and instead she morphed into a screaming demon, chances are it would leave a VERY lasting impression. And you’d tell your friends.

The game (Inception)

When a studio really wants to get fans to invest in a movie, they’ll sometimes try an alternate reality game (ARG), as director Christopher Nolan did with Inception. Through an online game and app dubbed Mind Crime, players could solve puzzles to gain access to snippets.

Why it worked: It’s a studio’s dream — you’ve got people putting in effort with the payoff of being advertised to.

The failure (Serenity)

From training videos starring sexy Summer Glau to numerous fan preview screenings, Universal did everything right — on paper — to promote Joss Whedon’s big-screen continuation of his sci-fi series Firefly.

Why it worked: It didn’t. The movie did poorly at the box office, and then Universal bit the hand that fed it by demanding fans remove copyrighted Serenity material from websites and merch. Even in viral marketing, there’s no sure thing.

One Saturday each month we’ll be adding a slew of Classic Movie Trailers to the site for your nostalgic enjoyment. From historical black & whites, to outrageous eighties, it’s a grab-bag of ‘gone but not forgotten’ previews.

Have a classic trailer request? Let us know in the comments!

Here are the latest additions:

American Gigolo Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician’s wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he’s being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him. Release Date: February 8, 1980 Director: Paul Schrader Cast: Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton, Hector Elizondo, Nina Van Pallandt, Bill Duke Genre: Drama | Crime | Romance

Deliverance Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it’s turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they’ll never forget into the dangerous American back-country. Release Date: July 30, 1972 Director: John Boorman Cast: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Ed Ramey Genre: Adventure | Drama | Thriller

Gone With the Wind American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Release Date: January 17, 1940 Director: Victor Fleming Cast: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O’Neil, George Reeves, Fred Crane Genre: Drama | Romance | War

The Graduate Recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock is trapped into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, who happens to be the wife of his father’s business partner and then finds himself falling in love with her daughter, Elaine. Release Date: December 22, 1967 Director: Mike Nichols Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Elizabeth Wilson Genre: Comedy | Drama | Romance

The Silence of the Lambs A young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. Release Date: February 14, 1991 Director: Jonathan Demme Cast: Jodie Foster, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Frankie Faison, Anthony Hopkins Genre: Thriller

Tremors Natives of a small isolated town defend themselves against strange underground creatures which are killing them one by one. Release Date: January 19, 1990 Director: Ron Underwood Cast: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire Genre: Comedy | Horror | Sci-Fi

Young Frankenstein Dr. Frankenstein’s grandson, after years of living down the family reputation, inherits granddad’s castle and repeats the experiments. Release Date: December 15, 1974 Director: Mel Brooks Cast: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr Genre: Comedy

… we have confirmation that trailer #3 is indeed coming. In fact, it’s already been put together!

The news comes from Claudio Serrano, the Spanish actor in charge of dubbing Christian Bale’s voice in The Dark Knight Rises trailer #3. Serrano tweeted about the job last night, and again today after stepping out of the recording booth. Serrano’s tweets are in Spanish, but his comment from today translates to “I can only say that the TDKR trailer 3 is … WOW!!”

Before today’s news, the internet was buzzing over which movie might have trailer #3 attached to it. It seems we have two logical choices… The Avengers, which hits theaters on May 4th, or Dark Shadows which is due out May 11th. Either way, I think it’s safe to assume we’re getting The Dark Knight Rises trailer #3 within the next 3 weeks.

by: Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times

The Internet and rabid fan culture have turned movie trailers, once seen only in theaters, into works that are promoted and analyzed as avidly as the films they advertise.

The online video touted an epic unveiling from one of Hollywood’s most revered filmmakers: “In three days, Ridley Scott returns to the genre he redefined….”

For the next two days, subsequent videos ratcheted up the excitement for the new project from the director of “Alien.”

Then, finally, it arrived: not the movie, not even the full-length trailer, but the one-minute “teaser” for Scott’s upcoming 20th Century Fox release “Prometheus.”

“We teased the teaser,” said Fox Chief Marketing Officer Oren Aviv. “And it was viewed 29.7 million times.”

This is the new world of trailers, in which the Internet and rabid fan culture have turned one- to three-minute ads, once seen only in theaters, into events promoted and analyzed as avidly as the films themselves.

Trailers are now watched more online than in theaters, and in record numbers. Audiences streamed more than 5.3 billion trailers worldwide last year and are on track to significantly outpace that figure in 2012.

“Our work used to be looked at as pieces of advertising that quickly comes and goes, but now it’s a key piece of content that people are going to analyze and judge,” said Michael McIntyre, the president of West L.A. entertainment marketing firm Mocean, which has made trailers for films including “Avengers,” “Project X” and “The Grey.”

Aiming to take advantage of the mania surrounding material that they used to just hope people would remember after leaving the theater, studios now market the marketing. Movies that followed “Prometheus’” lead with a “trailer for the trailer” have included “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2” and “Total Recall,” and Sony Pictures held screenings in 13 cities around the world in February to debut a trailer for “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

Yahoo, AOL and Apple’s iTunes battle to be the “exclusive” first home for a trailer online, often trading high-profile placement on a home page in exchange for the favor. In other cases, trailers are shared first with devoted fans via a Twitter feed or a Facebook game. Sometimes studios pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies that promise to help turn videos viral.

“You used to put the trailer in theaters and hope for the best, but now we can use digital marketing tools to make it a destination,” said Marc Weinstock, Sony worldwide marketing president.

First used nearly 100 years ago, when they were shown after the main feature, trailers long consisted of several scenes from a film interspersed with text or narration. Eventually they evolved, and now feature super-fast cuts, flashy graphics and original soundtracks. Studios typically spend between $100,000 and $200,000 to make each one, though the costs can rise as high as $1 million if the trailer includes an expensive song.

Several dozen companies in Los Angeles produce trailers, commercials and other marketing materials. Some have been around for decades and employ hundreds; others are boutique start-ups with just a few people and editing software. Nearly all pride themselves on making some of the most creative material coming out of Hollywood.

“When I started, there were a lot of people who might work on trailers in between editing movies,” said McIntyre, whose funky Westside office is decorated with old license plates, robot dolls and bowling pins. “Nowadays, 90% of the people just love movie trailers.”

A key reason, professionals say, is the Internet. “Our work has never been more popular, and that’s a great thing,” said Markus Werning, a trailer editor at Mojo in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire area whose recent work includes “The Hunger Games.” “We have the only job in the business where one person is truly his own filmmaker.”

In order to keep fans engaged and take advantage of the Web’s endless inventory, studios now put practically every available piece of content — be it trailer, commercial, clip or behind-the-scenes feature — online. Some produce online exclusives such as “red band” R-rated trailers, which usually feature outrageous content and require users to verify they are 17 or older in order to watch.

“We get so many more assets, and they’re rolled out earlier and earlier,” said Sybil Goldman, vice president of entertainment for Yahoo.

The increasing numbers of trailers online and commentary surrounding them mean increased scrutiny for the people who make them. Bloggers and tweeters dissect every frame of a trailer for mysterious projects like “Hunger Games” or “Prometheus” and can create instantaneous bad buzz for films whose trailers they don’t like, as happened to the flops “John Carter” and “Green Lantern.”

“People have access to so much marketing content in so many ways now that you have a higher bar for what is and isn’t a good trailer,” Aviv said.

There’s also growing scrutiny of the campaigns themselves. Avid fans are aware of the huge amounts of content being thrown at them and are becoming increasingly cynical. “The general consensus among people I know is that they are milking it too much with a trailer for a trailer,” said Nick Bosworth, editor of the trailers section — yes, they have one — on the movie fan site JoBlo.com.

Some critics also complain that trailers too often give away the entire plot of a film. But testing shows that when they don’t know what to expect, moviegoers are less likely to buy a ticket.

Studios, in other words, are sticking with what works. As the hype, attention and attendant anxiety around trailer debuts keep growing, they increasingly resemble another high-stakes moment for the movie industry.

“In some cases,” said Mojo co-owner Michael Kahane, “the trailer launch has become just as big an event as the movie opening weekend.”

If you can’t wait until Thursday for the release of Sony’s official Looper trailer, get a first look at the film in the teaser below.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt appears alongside writer/director Rian Johnson in the brief clip, which features the very first footage from Sony’s upcoming time travel action flick. Explaining the premise of the film, Gordon-Levitt asks the audience: “What would you do if you had to hunt down and kill your future self?”

“My future self is played by Bruce Willis,” he continues. “Which is how you know it’s a movie, because in real life I’d be screwed.”

“Looper has lots of action, but it also has this premise that you can dig into a little bit and it hopefully makes you think,” adds Johnson.

A more in-depth trailer is scheduled for release via the iTunes trailer site on Thursday — until then, soak in all the sci-fi goodness in the teaser below. Sony will release additional vignettes throughout the week over on iTunes.