COMMENT

March 18, 2008–Teasers are short, but those few seconds may turn the Indiana Jones sequel into a must-see when the eagerly-awaited picture opens May 22. Since the trailer's debut online 4 weeks ago, millions of fans have clicked to watch the promo for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

As the number of people watching TV or going to theaters levels off, studios are depending more on the feedback of the Internet for the crucial role of attracting a finicky public to new blockbusters.

A recent survey of moviegoers by the Motion Picture Association of America found that 73% looked for information about films online and that more than half of respondents (54%) saw ads or trailers online.

Traffic to sites with trailers increases as summer and holiday movies approach. Last July, it peaked as nearly 20 million unique viewers visited movie hubs on Yahoo, AOL and MSN as well as trailer sections of the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and Apple.com.

Trailers build up momentum because people love to talk about the movies. As fans become more accustomed to getting movie news online, studios realize they can manipulate buzz online.

For “Cloverfield,” Paramount ran an Internet-based marketing plan that weaved an experience” around the apocalyptic monster film, Patriquin says. The campaign kept the monster a mystery, pulling in moviegoers the first weekend who wanted to find out what he looked like.

The Internet plays a significant part in spreading the word, both positive and negative, about how the trailers are.

The definition of the term “trailer” is also changing. For “300,” Warner made DVD-like, behind-the-scenes footage available to Yahoo Movies (movies.yahoo.com) 13 months before opening. Hundreds of thousands of viewers watched. “We took it as an early sign that the film would be a hit,” says Yahoo entertainment's Karin Gilford.

The Internet provides a forum for people to have discussions far beyond the theater and classroom, Paramount's Gerry Rich says. Nothing replaces a captive audience sitting in a movie theater reacting to the trailers put in front of them.