I know tons of brilliant films which have uninteresting and even misleading trailers - and also absolutely disappointing films which had enticed me with fantastic trailers.
Yes, trailers were and still are my main source for attracting interest - but basically, it’s about the story and the director, the actors, the writers and cinematographers for me.
The last two Bond films fall squarely in this category.
Trailers, while an important piece of the lead up to a film, are nothing more than a marketing tool designed in a lab to get as broad of an audience as possible into the theater, often at the expense of selling the actual film as opposed to selling a version of the film that the marketing department of the studio thinks people want to see, even if that particular version of the film doesn’t actually exist. Take Halloween Ends, for example. If that film had been accurately marketed in the trailers, nobody would have gone to see it.
Absolutely agreed on the principle, not on the conclusion regarding those movies.
Different times…no new films on TV, no streaming, no internet so I guess they thought it was good enough. But this one has Bette Davis on top of the craft and a script with dialogue from Mankiewicz and Music by Alfred Newman, Franz Liszt and Anton Bruckner…you don´t need a trailer at all
That is not sustainable. Why are those theatres so expensive to run?
Received the 4K The New Avengers box this evening. Very exciting!
And I got a lower price from 150 pounds to 100 pounds.
Look forward to your review.
Good deal!
Disney+ just sent me a mail that I have to agree paying 60 Euros more than before per year if I want to keep my subscription.
I am sure this is only due to the high standards of its content.
https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2025/09/24/disney-begins-annual-round-of-price-increases/
Weird. Women preferred watching the third film in a not too well known franchise to buying tickets for a new Glen Powell movie…
I’m not all that surprised by it. The latest TV spots that have been running for The Running Man didn’t really do it many favors, at least with the demographic that they might have been looking to draw in with the Powell casting. I actually saw one of the spots in a room full of women early in the week and they all thought it looked dreadful.
It does look like a movie that is very much geared towards a male audience, at least in terms of the marketing that I’ve seen for it to this point.
It goes to show that Powell is not (yet) a box office draw and/or actors are not opening a movie anymore.
I don’t really think it has anything to do with Powell. I think they could have put just about anyone in the lead of The Running Man and the result would have been about the same.
The Now You See Me franchise looks like a much, much lighter film, which I think audiences are looking for more now than they are something that looks like the complete polar opposite in The Running Man. In a lot of ways, the general public is kind of living The Running Man at the moment, so why do they want to go see that in theaters when there’s lighter fare out there to be had?
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t also has some star power behind it as well. The latter has a rising star in Powell, but Now You See Me, Now You Don’t has Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman, and Woody Harrelson among others, and they’re starring in something that looks considerably lighter and more fun in tone. I think that, until everyday conditions improve for the masses, we’ll see the escapist fare do better than films like The Running Man.
They also don’t seem to be leaning in all that hard on this being a Stephen King adaptation, at least from the marketing that I’ve seen. That seems like a mistake to me.
And, besides, we all know that The Running Man didn’t do well because they didn’t bring back Mick Fleetwood for a cameo. 
The Running Man is the perfect example for everything wrong with Hollywood today: they didn´t dare to do a book adaption for the King fans, they didn´t dare to do a new (bigger, bolder more violent) adaption of the Arnie movie probably because of the price tag and the leading man so it leaves them doing one for the girls who like Powell and the three guys who think Wright can make a straight action movie…it´s as bad as the new Young A dult Predator…funnily enough they were both Schwarzenegger hit movies 
Im not overly surprised. Wright’s films are niche and tend to earn money slowly over years rather than huge opening weekends. I adore his work but im not blinkered enough to think his teenager on a sugar rush style is going to have mass appeal.
I loved the trailers, thought this had mass appeal, Powell and King.
On deadline.com they blame the regime change in marketing at the studio but I thought the marketing was good.
Maybe the dystopian thriller genre just hits too close to home these days, and I always feared that releasing this one so fast after THE LONG WALK was a mistake, too.
Still, the film tested extremely well. Maybe it’s just a problem to make people go out and buy a ticket to this one.
I am biased, of course, since I never had the urge to watch any of these NOW YOU SEE ME films.
I’ve only seen the first NOW YOU SEE ME but I get their appeal: it’s a variation on the OCEAN’S heist capers, a feel good version with illusionists instead of criminals and their cast is quite solid.
Once you’ve seen one there’s likely no need to watch the sequels - but like format tv series that’s probably a bonus in times like these, no surprises and you know what you get when you buy your ticket. Not so surprising even a third variation on a story now dormant for almost 10 years sells better than a comparatively gloomy tale not so different from what people already get in their headlines and feeds.
King fans will perhaps prefer the adaptation. But the urge to watch this at the theatre will not be so pressing. Whereas NOW YOU SEE ME maybe attracts the segment of people just deciding on a whim to spend an afternoon/evening at the movies because it’s the offering with the broadest appeal, a bit of suspense, a bit of intrigue, a bit of action, none of it offensive or with any gravitas.
The problem is, it´s not a good book adaption for King fans, it´s a stupid action movie in a dystopian world (like the Dark Tower disaster) with almost as bad lines for Powell than in the Schwarzenegger film
That’s the flip side, King adaptations are a mixed bag and many really don’t convince on any level, neither as adaptations nor as films in their own right. Much as one may criticise SHINING, it’s at least an epic cinema entry.
I wonder who is behind the fact that the 4K versions of YOLT and TB are 45% of at Amazon, and the other Connery Bonds are not.
Could it be that those do not sell as well?