If you’ve been at a computer in the past 48 hours, you’ve probably seen the trailer for the new Mad Max film. Even if you weren’t actively seeking it out, it probably came across more than one of your social media sharing sites. That’s how awesome it is.
We were prepping to write about how disappointing Warner Brothers’ Comic-Con panel was, before this footage was released. And even though we knew it’d be part of their presentation, we weren’t prepared for what we saw.
It was impossible to know what to expect from Mad Max: Fury Road. This is a film that’s gone through such a long production, with constant reports of needing more time to complete. It even had to move production to a different continent (Africa; more specifically Namibia) because, 30 years later, the same locations in Australia where The Road Warrior filmed weren’t looking up to snuff to director George Miller. An additional concern was about Miller, himself. Could the man who directed the original trilogy adequately go back to his post-apocalyptic-anarchist roots after making some enjoyable family films like Babe and Happy Feet? And could he really pull-off his intention to make one long car chase as an entire feature film?
Related: Watch: ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Trailer
The word we used to describe the trailer was “game-changer.” What we had low expectations for before, suddenly escalated to becoming, probably, the blockbuster film of 2015 that we’re most looking forward to. We watched it about a dozen times. Other sites paused to properly notate all the medical records tattooed on Max’s (Tom Hardy) body (some takeaways: “the road warrior” is seen, and it appears that his “genitals are intact”). But while we were immensely impressed with the footage, we have to remind ourselves to calm down and let the film come out.
This might be the only film site on the internet to transition from “genitals intact” to a Winnie the Pooh, quote, but hey, it’s worth mentioning the advice of that bear sage: “Eating honey is my favorite thing, but that moment before eating the honey and knowing how good it might be is even better? Yeah, that is my favorite thing.” Sometimes it’s impossible to meet the expectations of a trailer, but it’s important to remember the genuine excitement you first felt from seeing that footage. And that those two feelings are different.
That got us thinking, what were some other films that got us ramped up based on a trailer? Not ones that we were already looking forward to, but films whose trailer got us whipped into a fanatic frenzy, searching for a sleeping bag to go find a cinema to camp in front of right then. Some of those films turned out great, some awful and some just never were as sweet as we imagined the honey would be. But they were sweet nonetheless.
So, please, put your paws into our honey-hole. And let us know other trailers we might’ve missed, where your previously low (or no) expectations jumped up to, I-have-to-be-there-opening-night-and-why-can’t-that-just-be-tonight?!
Slideshow: 18 Game-changing Movie Trailers
Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.
18 Game-changing Movie Trailers
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Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
This trailer is perhaps why we've become leery of disaster trailers that are minimal with standard musical cues (here, a robotic drone by Johann Johannsson) and in showing the direct conflict. Because the movie was awful.
But the trailer was magnificent (Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon took this approach for their Super Bowl ad the same year). Sometimes this approach can still turn into a good film, though (see Godzilla, 2014). So the approach will continue -- and -- we'll continue to be skeptical.
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Cloverfield (2008)
Perhaps the greatest teaser for a film that has no tie in whatsoever to any pre-existing material that can provide a hint to the audience. Matt Reeves' film showed some found-footage of a surprise party, followed by an explosion in the distance, some commotion and the Statue of Liberty's head falling off. Fade to black.
Now, that's a game-changer. The audacious spot debuted in front of the first big, dumb Transformers movie. And while the film might not have been as audacious as that spot, it still was a whole lot of fun.
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Crash (1996)
It's hard to remember a time where I didn't know who David Cronenberg was, or what movie he had coming out. But back in 1996 that was the case. And all the magazines that were stuffed in my (parent's) mailbox said that this movie was an unreleasable mess. The video cover art couldn't get a great pull quote, it just said "sex ... and car crashes..."
But I remember seeing this trailer on VHS and my teenage mind exploding. And I didn't even know what Scanners was. Crash still makes my head explode and Cronenberg is a favorite. This film also went on to have a major cult following and also some mainstream re-evaluation.
I haven't seen any recent home video cover-art, but I'm sure it's got some great pull quotes. That or an asterisk saying beneath, "sex and car crashes" saying: "no feel-good answers to modern racism" in response to the awful Paul Haggis film.
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Fight Club (1999)
Similarly, it's hard to remember a time when David Fincher wasn't considered an auteur yet. This trailer -- and film -- certainly changed that. It's still surprising that a major studio released this male-terrorism anarchist film. But I guess it's not surprising that the studio head, Bill Mechanic, later stepped down. Largely because audiences didn't know they wanted to see this movie until after it hit theaters.
That's the thing with game-changing trailers. It can take a little while to hit the right audience. There's not always a unified OMG moment like the Mad Max: Fury Road trailer had.
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Fire in the Sky (1993)
I'll end the trilogy of "it's hard to remember a time when..." (which, itself, sounds like a trailer voiceover cliche) here: it is indeed hard to remember a time when it was rare that a horror film first let you know that it was based on a true story and/or witnesses verified these truths.
Can someone let me know if this movie is still scary? It damaged my ten-year-old brain irreparably. But it was fun to see with friends.
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Godzilla (2014)
Is it too early to call the above the best trailer of the new millennium?
At CraveOnline we ended up liking the final film a lot, but if we could go back to the absolute shock we had when we first caught this trailer, we might still choose that. It is perfection. It could be played on a loop and not get old.
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The Grey (2011)
After so many films that depict Liam Neeson while saving his or other people's families, it was a bit of a game-changer to learn that his most difficult saving scenario might be ... saving himself.
How's that for a trailer line?
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Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy appears to have been granted a sequel -- before even being released!! -- based on everyone's excitement over the trailer. And the goofball tone that sets it apart from the rest of the oh-so-serious business of saving the (Marvel) universe.
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Little Children (2006)
If Godzilla was the best trailer of the early 21st-century, then this one is probably the best dramatic trailer.
Even if you enjoyed Todd Field's previous film, In the Bedroom, you probably weren't prepared for this devastating trailer: bad people doing bad things, set against backdrops of beautiful, stormy scenery and a choo-choo-train chugging sound punctuating a Kate Winslet monologue. Non world-saving perfection. (But maybe it's characters like the ones in Little Children that beg the question -- is humanity even worth saving?)
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The Matrix (1999)
This was an all around action game-changer. It launched the Wachowski's into blank check territory; even still -- with Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending -- when the rest of the industry will only invest in existing properties.
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Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Stephen King has the audacity to insert himself in the preview like Alfred Hitchcock and promise to put the horror where it belongs -- "in his own hands" so that he can "scare the hell out of you!"
The movie isn't scary, but this trailer is priceless.
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The Minus Man (1999)
For anything to make sense in this blurb you actually have to watch the trailer.
You're back. Good. Now don't watch the movie. Because if you do, you might be responsible for -- at least! -- one other person's death.
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Prometheus (2012)
Do you remember when everyone thought that this was going to be the most awesome movie of 2012? That was largely based on a series of insanely well-edited trailers. Why'd they work so well? Because they got to edit out the script and just go with the images and performer reactions. Oh and because most of them ended with the perfect prequel closing line "Big things come from small beginnings." But actually that's how the Alien franchise could've been described, before this larger spectacle.
In a way, Prometheus ended up being underrated -- there are some fantastic moments in the film (such as Michael keeping himself company for a many year flight, the hologram re-enactment of a planet's fate), but also some dumb ones -- because the trailers all sent expectations so high that anything short of the best sci-fi film of all time was probably going to be a letdown.
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Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
I was in the minority then, and I'll still be in the minority now ... but I thought Magnolia was a mess -- a film with an awesome beginning and some great moments in between, but also was an overwrought and indulgent mess that was done in by bigger ideas (hmmm, like Prometheus?). So when I read that Adam Sandler was going to be in the next Paul Thomas Anderson film about scamming a pudding company, I thought maybe this was a director that was going to cash-in all his Boogie Nights goodwill on messy concoctions.
But this trailer, with its Jeremy Blake art imagery, Jon Brion score, Luis Guzman-Sandler friendship and a screaming Philip Seymour Hoffman, everything was put right back in place for our Great American Auteur Hope.
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Requiem for a Dream (2000)
How is it possible that the film's magnificent score, which would go on to be used in trailers for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, wasn't in this trailer? Because the trailer-makers magnificently cut it with all the other noises in the film: crowd chants, applause, pills hitting a table and exhales.
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Sin City (2005)
I suppose this placement is, perhaps, more of an admission that I knew nothing of Frank Miller prior to this. For fans the first trailer probably met their demands in knowing that Miller's panels were hitting the screen incredibly faithful to the source material.
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Twister (1996)
Thank you, trailer gods, for having the narrator shut up about nature and let us watch nature tear-up small town America. That tractor hitting the truck, as punctuation (after the title had already dropped) was one of the first of those tactics. Which is as much of a staple now, as narration was before.
Out with the old (opening narrator) in with the new (carnage punctuation).
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Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
It was impossible to know what Spike Jonze was going to do with his first non-Charlie Kaufman scripted film and he chose something seemingly impossible: give two-hours to a children's book that's barely a dozen pages and ultimately concerns emotional neglect. But this trailer proved that -- regardless of how you feel about the movie (I think that the "things" needing therapy is a welcome addition to the text) -- the wild things looked great. Unfortunately, the Arcade Fire song would be used in numerous trailers to come concerning waking up and enjoying what you have.
