A History Of Movie Trailers Shows How We Got To ‘In A World…’

The release of a hotly anticipated movie trailer can be as exciting as the release of the movie itself. But it wasn’t always that way. This video from Filmmaker IQ tells the story of how the short, titillating summaries got their start in Hollywood.

Like most things in Hollywood, the story of movie trailers is a story of selling. How many eyes can the studios bring to the theatre? The clips first appeared only in movie theatres and actually happened AFTER the movie. Decades later, with the release of Jaws, and the new idea of the blockbuster dominating studio strategy, trailers took a more prominent role on television to reach a broader audience.

The internet has of course altered the way trailers are consumed. Who knows what the future is for the peculiar and even beloved form of advertising. [ISO 1200]