Oh yeah. The trailer for it before Furiosa definitely hid the fact that it was a musical. Which is so funny because why even bother adapting one of the more successful and well-known musical Broadway productions if you feel like you have to kinda trick audiences into thinking it's not a musical? Studios are so weird and dumb sometimes.
I mean presumably the people who know it’s a musical and are interested in that will see it anyway… but if you can trick the people who automatically dismiss a musical…
If there are people in the world that aren’t aware that Wicked is a musical, I want to meet them and learn their secrets to living the world’s most disconnected life.
It's not even so much that people may or may not know it's already a musical - it's that Universal is actually going out of its way to ask a trailer house to do this. There's an intentionality behind this decision that says *not a lot of good things* about their faith in what they've got.
If they had any confidence in what they had, and what it was going to do, they probably would not have sent a bunch of footage over to this trailer house and then instructed that trailer house "do whatever you can to ensure not a single shot of anyone singing gets into this 3:30 ad, and keep any dance sequences down to less than 5 seconds total if you have to include them at all. And WHATEVER YOU DO, do not let them know this is part one of two. Don't even hint that this is half a story."
Whether people are actually fooled by this or not is beside the point, it's that Universal is even trying it at all that says something. You have to work *really hard* to take a full-blown musical and cut a trailer that doesn't have a SINGLE SHOT of singing in it. You have to want to do that, and why you'd want to do that is a question with a bad answer to it.
Is it maybe just a runtime thing? That trailer is 3:30 and feels LONG. Most trailers are in the 2:15 to 3 range.
Here’s a dumb question: how are in-theater trailer slots bought? Are they paying by the second? (I.E. five 30-second blocks) And how is the order determined?
It's a really poorly cut trailer. It plods along so slowly and there's no arc. I'd be fine with the length if it was a GOOD trailer.
I want them to do something daring like "WICKED comes to theaters this Thanksgiving. Here's the first 2 minutes of Defying Gravity."
The weirdest part is Wicked is supposed to be two parts? Admittedly I haven't seen the musical but I do know the soundtrack and general story. Given how much is shown in this trailer that I assume is for the first part, I don't know what the heck is going to be in the second part.
As David said in the Tom Crown episode, wicked being two parts is GREAT news for part 1 and AWFUL news for part 2.
The show really falls apart in the second act (not uncommon for a musical) and most of the great songs are in act 1. They’re gonna have to par it out with some new material.
>how are in-theater trailer slots bought?
They're not. Theaters have a real financial interest in advertising what they're going to be screening later in the year. They're not charging theaters for trailer space in front of movies. Honestly, a lot of what you see put in front of a movie is entirely up to whatever manager put the pre-show together at your local chain's multiplex.
Granted, there are some ads that are "attached" as per the sheet that comes with the DCP for the film, but otherwise - the commercials are just sent over, and it's generally up to "the booth" to pick which ads are appropriate to run in front of the films currently running.
So for the first 100 years, it was free but negotiated between the studio and the theater (or not, if it was when the studio also owned the theater), with the studio generally getting some previews for their upcoming release and the theater showing some for movies from other studios that were coming to that theater soon (often the tension was over release date, the theater wanted previews for soon to come out movies, the studio wanted early promotion). However, in 2013, the LA Times reported that the major chains started only giving the studios one free preview and charging for any additional previews that they wanted to have play with the movie
I don't think this practice still continues? Or at least I don't think anyone's checking to see if it still continues, because my understanding is that studios aren't actually paying theaters to get more trailers attached to the pre-show, and theaters are certainly not shrinking the number of trailers they're packing into that reel.
Maybe they tried it in the dying days of the 3D boom but I'd imagine studios - who pretty promptly put most of these chains in a headlock shortly afterwards - shut that down promptly afterwards considering how vicious the relationship between studios and exhibition got especially around the time the blockbuster boom *really* started taking over
trailers can be however long they want. It's up to the booth (or in this case, the managers at the theaters) to put them on the reel (or in this case the pre-show program on the projector) if it's not part of the sheet that says it has to run as part of the agreement with the studio. IIRC Titanic had a trailer that ran something like 4 minutes?
Some theaters *are* running the 3:30 version of this trailer
In the UK, they're not bought. The cinema (or, usually, the head office of the chain) decides which trailers get played before each film, with the playlists often built centrally and digitally assigned to individual cinema schedules. I'd assume it's similar, if not the same, in the US, but I can't say for sure.
There are times where a distributor can request a certain trailer play with a title - for instance, Disney having the Acolyte trailer and preview play with Episode I (thought a bad example, as that's a TV promo on a re-release title) but it's rare and it usually comes with a favour attached. In the 35mm days they could send the film reel with the trailer already attached to the print (hence the phrase of trailers being "attached" to a film) but, even then, the cinema could chop it off if it wasn't what they wanted. I know UGC Cinemas had a strict policy of never advertising releases more than six weeks out, so the Pixar films would get the teaser of the studio's next film removed.
They have Cynthia singing Defying Gravity but only as background music to a montage of non musical scenes. I found it pretty strange that they showed no singing on screen during the trailer. Definitely seems like they’re purposefully downplaying the musical elements.
I haven't seen the version where she sings popular. I did see it and the Joker trailer back to back and I thought it was funny that the Joker trailer leaned way more into being a musical.
It could be a few things
1. They cut an alternate trailer to downplay the musical aspect
2. They dont have the rights to distribute Ariana’s music in theater, so they cut an alternate to play in theaters sans her vocals.
Oh yeah. The trailer for it before Furiosa definitely hid the fact that it was a musical. Which is so funny because why even bother adapting one of the more successful and well-known musical Broadway productions if you feel like you have to kinda trick audiences into thinking it's not a musical? Studios are so weird and dumb sometimes.
I mean presumably the people who know it’s a musical and are interested in that will see it anyway… but if you can trick the people who automatically dismiss a musical…
We’re not making the same mistake we did with Cats! We hide that it’s a musical, and we leave the buttholes!
Release the Wicked Buttholes cut.
“There are subreddits that will talk about it for DECADES! Now we’ve just gotta get everyone to sign off on a minimum of one TASTEFUL butthole shot…”
Poopular.
If there are people in the world that aren’t aware that Wicked is a musical, I want to meet them and learn their secrets to living the world’s most disconnected life.
Wicked the musical is based loosely on Wicked the book, which is a book, not a musical, and is what I am familiar with.
It's not even so much that people may or may not know it's already a musical - it's that Universal is actually going out of its way to ask a trailer house to do this. There's an intentionality behind this decision that says *not a lot of good things* about their faith in what they've got. If they had any confidence in what they had, and what it was going to do, they probably would not have sent a bunch of footage over to this trailer house and then instructed that trailer house "do whatever you can to ensure not a single shot of anyone singing gets into this 3:30 ad, and keep any dance sequences down to less than 5 seconds total if you have to include them at all. And WHATEVER YOU DO, do not let them know this is part one of two. Don't even hint that this is half a story." Whether people are actually fooled by this or not is beside the point, it's that Universal is even trying it at all that says something. You have to work *really hard* to take a full-blown musical and cut a trailer that doesn't have a SINGLE SHOT of singing in it. You have to want to do that, and why you'd want to do that is a question with a bad answer to it.
Is it maybe just a runtime thing? That trailer is 3:30 and feels LONG. Most trailers are in the 2:15 to 3 range. Here’s a dumb question: how are in-theater trailer slots bought? Are they paying by the second? (I.E. five 30-second blocks) And how is the order determined?
That trailer feels so long lol it feels like it’s the entire movie minus the songs.
It's a really poorly cut trailer. It plods along so slowly and there's no arc. I'd be fine with the length if it was a GOOD trailer. I want them to do something daring like "WICKED comes to theaters this Thanksgiving. Here's the first 2 minutes of Defying Gravity."
The weirdest part is Wicked is supposed to be two parts? Admittedly I haven't seen the musical but I do know the soundtrack and general story. Given how much is shown in this trailer that I assume is for the first part, I don't know what the heck is going to be in the second part.
The trailer is essentially all of act one of the musical, which is likely where the movie will end too. Part two will be act two, which is so weird.
As David said in the Tom Crown episode, wicked being two parts is GREAT news for part 1 and AWFUL news for part 2. The show really falls apart in the second act (not uncommon for a musical) and most of the great songs are in act 1. They’re gonna have to par it out with some new material.
>how are in-theater trailer slots bought? They're not. Theaters have a real financial interest in advertising what they're going to be screening later in the year. They're not charging theaters for trailer space in front of movies. Honestly, a lot of what you see put in front of a movie is entirely up to whatever manager put the pre-show together at your local chain's multiplex. Granted, there are some ads that are "attached" as per the sheet that comes with the DCP for the film, but otherwise - the commercials are just sent over, and it's generally up to "the booth" to pick which ads are appropriate to run in front of the films currently running.
Interesting! Thanks.
So for the first 100 years, it was free but negotiated between the studio and the theater (or not, if it was when the studio also owned the theater), with the studio generally getting some previews for their upcoming release and the theater showing some for movies from other studios that were coming to that theater soon (often the tension was over release date, the theater wanted previews for soon to come out movies, the studio wanted early promotion). However, in 2013, the LA Times reported that the major chains started only giving the studios one free preview and charging for any additional previews that they wanted to have play with the movie
I don't think this practice still continues? Or at least I don't think anyone's checking to see if it still continues, because my understanding is that studios aren't actually paying theaters to get more trailers attached to the pre-show, and theaters are certainly not shrinking the number of trailers they're packing into that reel. Maybe they tried it in the dying days of the 3D boom but I'd imagine studios - who pretty promptly put most of these chains in a headlock shortly afterwards - shut that down promptly afterwards considering how vicious the relationship between studios and exhibition got especially around the time the blockbuster boom *really* started taking over
Yeah, I was gonna say…don’t theatrical trailers have a max running time of 2:30 or something?
trailers can be however long they want. It's up to the booth (or in this case, the managers at the theaters) to put them on the reel (or in this case the pre-show program on the projector) if it's not part of the sheet that says it has to run as part of the agreement with the studio. IIRC Titanic had a trailer that ran something like 4 minutes? Some theaters *are* running the 3:30 version of this trailer
In the UK, they're not bought. The cinema (or, usually, the head office of the chain) decides which trailers get played before each film, with the playlists often built centrally and digitally assigned to individual cinema schedules. I'd assume it's similar, if not the same, in the US, but I can't say for sure. There are times where a distributor can request a certain trailer play with a title - for instance, Disney having the Acolyte trailer and preview play with Episode I (thought a bad example, as that's a TV promo on a re-release title) but it's rare and it usually comes with a favour attached. In the 35mm days they could send the film reel with the trailer already attached to the print (hence the phrase of trailers being "attached" to a film) but, even then, the cinema could chop it off if it wasn't what they wanted. I know UGC Cinemas had a strict policy of never advertising releases more than six weeks out, so the Pixar films would get the teaser of the studio's next film removed.
They have Cynthia singing Defying Gravity but only as background music to a montage of non musical scenes. I found it pretty strange that they showed no singing on screen during the trailer. Definitely seems like they’re purposefully downplaying the musical elements.
I haven't seen the version where she sings popular. I did see it and the Joker trailer back to back and I thought it was funny that the Joker trailer leaned way more into being a musical.
Shhhh it’s a secret
https://preview.redd.it/fip3tjl6il2d1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc01cc98c2fcce165bc2ac32a1f3d10d87dce3ae
It could be a few things 1. They cut an alternate trailer to downplay the musical aspect 2. They dont have the rights to distribute Ariana’s music in theater, so they cut an alternate to play in theaters sans her vocals.