Editorial #5 - Why I Will No Longer Watch Anything Related to Infinity War
As many of you know, and I'm sure as many of you are anticipating, Avengers: Infinity War is hitting theater in about 3 and a half weeks. We have come this far, and the wait is almost over for what is promised to be the year's biggest film.
And with the imminence of the film and the near arrival, comes another things: marketing.
This editorial is not so much on the state of Infinity War itself; rather, it is a vessel for me to explain my thoughts on marketing campaigns and why I personally avoid them after a certain point in time.
If you were to turn on the TV and watch for an extended period of time, it is customary to see what are known as "TV Spots" for upcoming movies. These short, 30-second compilations of shots from new movies are there for one purpose, and one purpose alone: to entice the ordinary, everyday citizen to see the movie that they otherwise would not have gone out to see.
However, as someone who considers themselves a movie pundit, fan, but most importantly, someone who was already going to see Infinity War, these shots of footage are completely extraneous for me. Because of the nature of marketing, however, studios do release anywhere from 10-30 of these before a movie's release.
Think about it - if you were a major studio, you would want three different demographics of people, two of which are nearly guaranteed. One such demographic is the hard-core fans - these are the people who will go out to see the film no matter what, and they have this audience. The second demographic are the borderline, casual moviegoing public. These groups of people, however, can be won over by the major trailers, and depending on how good the marketing is, as well as how the word of mouth is, these groups of people can be won over easily.
However, the third group of people are what the studios are concerned about. These are the people who are sitting on their couch watching Sunday Night Baseball who cannot be bothered to go out to the theater to see the latest "pew, pew, bam, bam, explosion, superhero lightsaber" movie.
This is why they release TV Spots. And this is also why TV Spots usually have the most spoilers for a movie. Again, thinking logically, if you were a studio trying to entice an audience that would not care otherwise, the most ideal thing to do in this scenario is to put in shots that reveal a lot about the story to give the audience an idea of what's going on in the movie. Additionally, they will pack in shots so that the viewer can take in as much of the movie in a short amount of time to see whether or not they want to see the movie.
And here we come to the heart of the editorial - usually TV Spots contain major spoilers for films. In many cases, these TV Spots will sacrifice spoilers for upcoming films in order to grab various people who would find it intriguing. in film such as Infinity War or Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the studio will be careful not to reveal too much. However, they will still try to pack in shots not seen in the trailer.
As a major fan who wants to see the movie so badly, I want to go into the film fresh, and without anything that I know for sure. I am not the type of person who wants to go in without any speculation or theorizing - I think that's a really fun thing about being a fan, as long as you can leave them at the door when you walk into the theater.
This is why after the major trailers, I refuse to watch anything related to Infinity War. If a TV Spot were to be aired on TV, I'm going to run to the other room to avoid viewing it. Because, as I said earlier, I would love to go into the film as fresh as possible. And while I completely understand the need for the TV Spots and clips being released to promote the movie, they're not for me. I know this - and I hope that if you are excited for the movie, you know to stay away as well.
Avengers: Infinity War comes out on April 27th.
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