The last time I looked, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer had been viewed around 60 million times, the biggest debut for a trailer since they first started tracking such things. It’s hard to know exactly how impressed we should be since it broke the record set by The Avengers: Age of Ultron earlier this year which itself beat the record previously set by Fifty Shades of Grey, also earlier this year. So, some trailer could come along 5 months from now to blow The Force Awakens’ 60 million out of the water. What if that trailer just happens to also be for Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
It could very well happen. According to SlashFilm, Disney is planning on attaching the next Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer to The Avengers: Age of Ultron when it goes out next May. The way these things have been going lately that would probably mean it’ll leak online early, in some bootleg quality, causing Disney to officially release it days in advance of its intended premiere. Many will flock to the inevitable iTunes link, grumble about having to download an update for Quicktime to watch the dang thing whereas others will wait for it to show up on YouTube, officially or unofficially.
When do we get to see more of this little guy (or gal)?
Will we really have to wait that long to see more of what J.J. Abrams and crew are cooking up? We’ve felt it. The force has awakened, and it’s seriously pissed that this movie won’t come out for a little over a year from now. Purists will argue that with the seemingly guaranteed box office success awaiting The Force Awakens in December 2015 Disney need not actually release any more footage. Via the 88-second teaser, they’ve announced that this film exists. When it’s a Star Wars film we’re talking about they don’t really need to do much more to sell it than simply give us a brief taste and tell us when and where to go to see the full thing. Beyond The Phantom Menace, the prequel trilogy may not have sold nearly as many tickets as the original trilogy, but they were still money-printing machines. The last one, Revenge of the Sith, made the equivalent of $481 million domestic at current ticket prices, and only two movies have hovered around that territory in recent years, The Avengers ($623m) and The Dark Knight Rises ($467m). The Force Awakens isn’t guaranteed to come near that kind of business, but it should seemingly be protected from a Star Trek Into Darkness-like box office disappointment despite the presence of the same director, J.J. Abrams.
That’s all fine and good, but, come on, there’s no way Disney doesn’t keep hyping this movie to death in the coming year. That’s just how Hollywood works now, everything geared toward eventivizing the first weekend movie going experience. There will be more teasers and trailers. The first one gave us new characters along with a familiar looking droid and set of spaceships. The next one could give us our first glance at the elderly Luke, Leia, and Han. Either way, there will be more footage, and it’ll probably end up in front of Avengers: Age of Ultron because why wouldn’t Disney want to use its biggest release of 2015 as a platform to hype its second biggest? The real question remains whether or not they’ll actually wait that long to reveal more footage from the movie. Why not use a new teaser as a marketing hook for a less well-known Disney film early next year? Can they really pass up the opportunity to drop something new during the Super Bowl?
The trick, though, will be to continue giving us the goods without actually giving us too much. One imagines a Empire Strikes Back trailer in today’s movie marketing environment probably would have come far too close to spoiling the “I am your father!” moment. So, if Force Awakens has any kind of climactic Maury Povich-like paternity reveal you probably don’t want to include that in any of the marketing. Actually, maybe take that out of the film altogether.
What about you? Are you eagerly anticipating the next helping of Force Awakens footage we’ll get, whenever that might be? Or are you still skeptical of the whole dang thing? Take to the comments, you must.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens stars a bunch of new Star Wars people (John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow) and ones we already know (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker). It is due out December 18, 2015.