Oftentimes when someone finds out I make movie trailers for a living, the person wastes no time complaining about the state of motion picture marketing. Namely that trailers and TV spots give away too much of the film.

So I just want to clear the air and say: I COULDN’T AGREE MORE!

It feels like every time I watch a movie, I can’t help anticipating when a particular joke or moment is going to play out because I already saw it in the trailer. In fact, I know people (in this very industry even!) who have stopped watching trailers altogether because it spoils their movie watching experience.

I understand that lesser known films need to spill their guts to get any potential moviegoers to connect with them, but there’s no excuse when major films with universal brands do it.

Yes, I’m thinking of The Dark Knight.

When The Dark Knight trailer campaign began, it started with a simple teaser. We see the bat signal backlit by blue light, and we hear dialogue lines from the movie that chip away at the logo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWw0ov-cAUg

We have no idea what’s going on, but we know enough: there’s a new villain in town, and Batman has to kick his ass to make Gotham safe-ish. Do we really need to know more than that? Warner Bros later released three full-length trailers that gave us almost every single good scene/line from the feature—so by the time I was in the theater watching the film, I could anticipate every important moment in the movie.

But did they need to do all that? I would argue that they didn’t. All they needed was the teaser and a few TV spots that showcased the production value of the film. The real fans didn’t want to spoil the movie by knowing too much ahead of time.

A trailer rarely gives away the ending of a film, but few films have endings that take us by surprise. Let’s be honest: if you buy tickets for a romantic comedy, you have a pretty good idea how the story’s going to end for the main guy and girl. We all know a horror flick will usually end with almost everyone dead, a superhero movie finishes when the hero rescues the world, etc. What you’re interested in seeing is how the characters arrive at that ending—the journey.

And the journey is the one thing the trailer shows you. Everyone who saw The Hangover trailer knew that a tiger was hiding inside their hotel room, one of the characters was going to lose a tooth, and Mike Tyson was going to knock someone out. But just imagine if you went into that movie without knowing any of that—how much funnier would it have been when those things happened?

Of course, there’s the obvious counterargument: how many of you would have bought a ticket to that film if you didn’t know those jokes were in store for you?

What I think it ultimately comes down to is business versus pleasure. Which is more important: selling tickets or ensuring an audience’s enjoyment?

For the motion picture industry, opening weekend box office numbers indicate whether a movie is a success or a failure. So the average marketing executive’s only concern is to get people in the theater—even if that means giving away the best part of the film in the trailer.

The best solution I can think of is to shorten movie trailers. Right now most trailers are in the two-minute range. Why not keep them at 60 to 90 seconds? That way you can get the story across and show one or two good moments/jokes, and keep everything else secret.

Also, most films today have multiple full-length trailers, each one aimed at a different