Marvel Issuing Takedowns Over Thor Trailer; Hey Marvel: Trailers Are Advertising

from the someone's-confused dept

Fri, Jul 30th 2010 4:21pm — Mike Masnick

There's been plenty of buzz over the the upcoming movie Thor, and at the recent Comic-Con in San Diego, Marvel apparently showed off a trailer of the movie that got people excited. Of course, with so many people in the room, some filmed it, and it didn't take long for the clip to go online. Other movies have done this as well. I remember last year that Jon Favreau showed the first clips from Iron Man 2 at Comic-Con and then happily tweeted links to videos that people had put up. Apparently, however, Marvel isn't too happy about this. Benny6Toes points out that the trailer has been taken down and looking around the web, it appears to have been taken down from a bunch of sites, though others claim you can find it if you really want.

Either way, I'm trying to figure out how this makes any sense at all. It's a trailer. The whole idea of it is to act as advertising for the movie and get people more interested in seeing the movie. And having people put it online for you makes it free advertising, which is even better. So why take it down at all?

In the meantime, since apparently it's forbidden to show the real trailer, we might as well include the absolutely hilarious fake trailer of a different mythologically-based movie, which is what the movie God of War, based on the video game of the same name, would look like if made by Wes Anderson:

Now, there's a movie I'd see.

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Filed Under: takedowns, thor, trailers
Companies: marvel

31 Comments

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Thomas (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 4:00pm

"Thor" Trailer. It's a headline, for crisesakes. Must be Friday.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 4:21pm
  
  Re:
  Typos happen. You point 'em out, we fix 'em.
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  - Thomas (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 5:20pm
    
    Re: Re:
    No disrespect intended. I love your blog and read it every day. I just forgot to put a ;) or lol or /sarcasm or some such. I'm just kinda snarky that way.
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    - Ryan, 30 Jul 2010 @ 5:27pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Yet another unfortunate miscommunication that could've been avoided with the SarcMark.
      
      Amusingly, I'm seeing "video not available" in the embed.
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      - Thomas (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 8:12pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Yes indeed. I can't wait for that SarcMark to be rolled out commercially. I will certainly be a customer, licensing several a day - what with the snarky way i write and all.
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        PRMan, 30 Jul 2010 @ 9:20pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Just use the open source Arabic letter instead...
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- TakeYourOwnAdvice, 18 Sep 2010 @ 11:26am
  
  Re: Thor" Trailer. It's a headline, for crisesakes. Must be Friday.
  It's Christsakes, not Crisesakes.
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Rob, 30 Jul 2010 @ 4:48pm

I've never understood the logic behind trying to keep Comic-Con footage "exclusive." Somehow, some way, the footage is going to get out, and WAY more people than were at Comic-Con are going to see the debut footage of your new movie in crappy bootleg low-resolution (as the Thor trailer looked when I watched it yesterday); and in the internet world of short attention spans, first impressions really count. Many of the studios have figured this out, and post their Comic-Con footage in HD shortly after the show. That way the geeks who attend still get to be FIRST!!!!111 but everyone else gets to see the advertising the way it was meant to be seen. No idea what Marvel's thinking on this one.
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Rob (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 5:13pm

Someone on Twitter pointed out that the Thor trailer is going to be on the Iron Man 2 DVD/Blu-ray, out in September. Could they be trying to treat advertising as content by foolishly attempting to keep the trailer offline until then?
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2010 @ 5:16pm
  
  Re:
  No, they just have a legal department that acts reflexively without thinking, sometimes apparently with a mind of its own.
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- PaulT (profile), 31 Jul 2010 @ 4:30am
  
  Re:
  "Could they be trying to treat advertising as content by foolishly attempting to keep the trailer offline until then?"
  
  Yes, they are. They have discovered that some theatrical movies get a boost from an exclusive trailer and are trying to move that to DVD. The facts that the DVD will get ripped the second it's sent to manufacturers and that the target market for Thor is basically the same people who would have bought the Iron Man 2 DVD anyway escapes them...
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Rob (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 5:56pm

Anon: If that's the case, then why isn't Marvel putting the trailer out there themselves? Why not combat the leak by driving traffic back to their own site with a higher-quality version?
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AW, 30 Jul 2010 @ 6:05pm

I'd seriously watch that God Of War movie if it were made. It seems far more interesting than a lot of crap put out today.
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Eugene (profile), 30 Jul 2010 @ 6:37pm

I don't understand it, and it's infuriating. Nearly all movie studios have this near-psychotic vice grip their advertising content. If anything - ANYTHING - is released or viewed without their complete and utter control behind it, they freak the hell out. I know sometimes people joke about how 'oh maybe the leak is secretly intentional, haha'. But seriously, I don't believe that thought has even marginally crossed the mind of any major studio, ever.

I worked for an entertainment site a few years ago that was very movie oriented. The only thing we got more than trailer leaks was takedown notices for said leaks. It was ridiculous. At one point, we actually wrote back, directly asking if they just didn't *want* the free publicity. But they don't care. Control is more important to them.
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Memyself, 30 Jul 2010 @ 6:52pm

Taking down the trailers creates a sense of the forbidden. Drives up interest. The buisness model takes into consideration articles like this one right here. I was at the convention and had no idea there was a trailer for the movie. Thanks to the press generated by taking down the trailers, I now know more than I did before.

There is a constant call on Techdirt for content producers to explore new ways of reaching people. Well, this is one of them.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2010 @ 9:30pm
  
  Re:
  THIS.
  
  Techdirt was all part of the plan. Industry is making BILLIONS and techdirt is still proposing alternatives that net a few hundred thou here and there? It's cute, and all, but people follow the money.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2010 @ 9:33pm
  
  Re:
  So is punching people in the face.
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tez, 30 Jul 2010 @ 9:16pm

well, that worked -- the trailer is all over youtube, again (still?) lol
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- Memyself, 30 Jul 2010 @ 9:18pm
  
  Re:
  It worked perfectly. Because here we are, talking about it.
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G Thompson (profile), 31 Jul 2010 @ 2:19am

Awesomeness
I actually saw the trailer and it was for want of a better word... AWESOME.

As a trailer it is interesting in that it is over 5 minutes in length, so I would call it more of an extended preview that they could take apart and make into the standard 1 - 2 minute trailers.

OH and if you are wondering...Yes I saved it, its only in SD format, and as an xVID/AVI its about 50MB and 21Mb as a standard Flv format.

Oh and if Marvel is listening, Yes I have shown it to others, Yes I will recommend the movie to others becasue via the trailerpreview I think it's very worth the wait to see this brilliant adaptation of Norse mythology (very Stargate like too)

Oh and Marvel Legal team... alpharia@gmail.net if you want to contact me with a C&D.. My response will be to refer you to both the Australian statute and to the reply in Arkell v. Pressdram (1971) [unreported]
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minijedimaster (profile), 31 Jul 2010 @ 7:25am

Who's the chick in this God of War trailer. She's kinda cute.
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- minijedimaster (profile), 31 Jul 2010 @ 7:33am
  
  Re:
  figured it out. Zane Bauer, she is a producer at gamervision. http://twitter.com/ZanePants
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DarrenJSeeley, 31 Jul 2010 @ 7:35am

Marvel Issuing Takedowns over Thor
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DarrenJSeeley, 31 Jul 2010 @ 7:46am

Marvel Issuing Takedowns over Thor
Most of the time, trailers that are posted on YouTube or other sites are just that- free advertising. However, there are some exceptions- and I think THOR is one of them.

* A studio may want the trailer for their own site if there isn't much content to that website. It is therefore exclusive to them.the site, yet still viewable by the public. It does not appear to be the case yet with Thor- but it is possible.

*It wasn't an official trailer. It was a few scenes put together for a presentation.If the Captain America footage that was shown (which was simply a few dailies w/the timecode) made it on the net and Marvel/Paramount asked to take it down, would the net-folk still cry foul?
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Steven Hoy, 31 Jul 2010 @ 2:04pm

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Well, I just bought the song. Never would have found it otherwise.

What does this tell you?

Cheers Mate.
S.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2010 @ 1:49am

Guess I'll have to pass on this movie then, Fawktards!
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2010 @ 8:12am

Good advertising unless the movie sucks and they don't want anyone to see it.
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- DS, 1 Aug 2010 @ 7:52pm
  
  Re:
  /\-This sounds like the real reason to me.
  
  Sort of like when a movie is not shown to critics before it opens.
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Myass, 4 Aug 2010 @ 5:37am

I think there just fucking retarded damn nerds
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