By now, you've almost certainly seen the mysterious trailer for the new, untitled, seemingly Top Secret, movie from J.J Abrams (Lost, Alias). If you didn't go see Transformers (I didn't), and you haven't seen one of the pirate copies on the way, Google for it and then come back. So far, the only versions online are pirated cell-phone videos, but occasionally some of those are pretty decent in clarity.
Seriously, this thing is marketing genius. The trailer gives you nothing to work with, other than "something really nasty happens in midtown Manhattan and, oh, also on Liberty Island," as the head of the Statue of Liberty comes careening down a New York City street.
What's the premise of the movie? Not a clue.
Theories, of course, abound. It's the upcoming Voltron project (which some sources say will take place in New York City)... it's a new Godzilla movie (again, which was also slated to come out in 2008)... it's a movie tie-in for Lost (maybe that button-pressing thing really does have consequences outside the island)... maybe it's something completely new and fresh and something we're not expecting.
The one thing we can be sure of is that a big chunk of the film-loving Internet populace is all abuzz wondering "what the heck it is", something that would never have happened if the trailer had followed the standard "show us the 90-second movie summary start to finish" formula we've grown accustomed to.
The man's a genius. He'll get way more marketing mileage out of this trailer than anything else he could have done.
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