The recently released 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mortal Kombat 2 movie trailer was a fun watch, with the introduction of Johnny Cage, plenty of foul language and gore, and the inclusion of the iconic ‘168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mortal Kombat’ scream to top it all off. What’s not to love? I’ll tell you what, the hours-long stream♏ing “event” that ran before it across social media.

Stunts like this have become far more common in movies, TV, and even video games in recent years. Whether it’s watching the reveal of so you’ll know filming on the next Avengers has st💯arted or viewing the Even the final season of Game of Thrones had fans sit through over an hour of watching ice melt – seriously – just to learn the date of the season premiere.

The Worst Way To Get Me Excited For A Movie

Avatar: The Way of Water
20th Century Studios
Avatar: The Way of Water

At some point, marketing firms in the entertainment industry seemingly lost their minds and decided we all wan𝔍t to stare at a YouTube video for two hours just to see a three-minute clip. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I absolutely do not want that. Sure, part of the problem is I’m an entertainment journalist and covering stuff like this is technically my job.

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More than that, though, I’m someone who loves movies and TV. And i▨f your preview or announcement is worthy of our time, it won’t need to be preceded by a . By the time the two hours are up, I simply don’t care as much about whatever it is you’re trying to sell me. So pretty pleasᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚe stop wasting my time.

And I enjoyed the Mortal Kombat 2 trailer. However, I would have enℱjoyed it more without the forced faux excitement. We aren’t watching this video because we’re dying to see a character poster for Kano, even if we don’t understand why he’s in the movie since he was previously killed off.

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Every Half-Life breaks ne▨w ground, just like a certain blockbuster film series.

3

And don’t think video games aren’t guilty of this, too. You all remember last week’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:hour-long DJ Pikachu set t⭕hat led to the announcement ofꦓf… not much at Pokemon Presents?

How Did We Get Here?

Avatar: The Way of Water
20th Century Studios
Avatar: The Way of Water

This all goe🔜s back to the promotional cycles for Cloverfield and The Dark Knight, both released in 2008 with interactive campaigns𝔍 leading up to their release. With The Dark Knight, we were slowly revealing our first looks at a teaser, as well as an image of Heath Ledger’s Joker. The idea that we, as fans, could use the internet to uncover actual clues about a new Batman movie was exciting and fresh.

The same can be said for C♏loverfield, except none of us actually knew what it is we were looking for. That made it even more exciting, as it often felt like an internet-wide exploration for bits and clues about whatever Cloverfield was go♏ing to be and how Slusho – a fictional brand featured in the franchise – would bring about the end of the world.

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Those two early examples of engagemen꧋t-driven marketing for movies were perfect examples of the time they happened in. At the time, YouTube was only three years old and the advent of endless searchable streaming video, where you could find the clips themselves or videos theorizing on what they meant, was a novel idea. Now,ಞ in 2025, that’s just YouTube. It’s stuffed with commentators who have thoughts on everything, and they’re shouting them at you 24/7.

The reason those campaigns worked so well is because they were novel approaches to an aging system. Now, the watered down version we get the🍒se days has aged even worse. And it’s time to go back.

The Solution Is A Pretty Easy One (And Cheaper, Too)

Jake Sully riding a Skimwing across the water in Avatar The Way of Water.

While I have a hard time believing studios will backtrack into how trailers used to be released, it would certainly be 🐼a better♛ option and one that would cost them far less money. Just release the trailers. Put them online, promote them on social media accounts, and let the internet do its thing.

There are still blockbuster movies that simply release their trailers online and let press and fans carry them to the far corners of the internet. When I see that, it gives me more faith in whatever is on tap because it’s no frills. When the first trailer for 28 Years Later arrived, it took my by surprise because it simply appeared – and it was wonderful. Meanwhile, Superman went💃 on to debut as one of the biggest movies of the year. However, it’s trailers were heralded little by li🉐ttle more than an excited James Gunn letting his social media followers know to be on the lookout the next day.

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Of course, rel𓆏easing a trailer with no fanfare doesn’t automatically mean you’re headed for something great. Sadly, n𒁏ot all movies are good – good for me, anyway. But, at the very least, I’m enjoying a viewing experience that’s more likely to ensnare me in the unfolding story.

I sometimes have a hard time calling a movie, TV show, or video game truly bad b🤡ecause there’s always someone out there who loves it unashamedly, and that has to mean something.

However, there’s an even more interesting solution, and it’s one that has somehow made me like James Cameron’s Avatar franchise for the first tim🦄e in history, which is something I never thought I’d say.

Did Avatar 3 Just Fix The Problem With Movie Trailers?

Avatar: The Way of Water
20th Century Studios
Avatar: The Way of Water

As I sat down to watch Fantastic Four on its Thursday preview night, I also settled in for what I expected to be 20 minutes of trailers,𒉰 most of which I won’t pay attention to because that's just too much content to properly absorb before waܫtching a two-hour movie.

You can imagine my surprise then when the AMC introductions started to play, Nicole Kidman told me about how heartbreak feels in a place like this, and the trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash began to roll. It was the only trai𒁃ler that played before Fantastic Four began.

What an absolute delight to not wonder ‘is this the last one?’ constantly. Instead, an employee at the theater I was in walked🦋 in, said there would just be a single trailer, and left us ready to 𒈔partake.

I should note here, I don’t like or care about the Avatar franchise. I find James Cameron’s public-facing personality is exhausting and that his directo🏅rial work peaked with Titanic. I can respect the visuals of Ava꧑tar – it’s a 3D black light poster in motion – but the story, characters, and performances just don’t do it for me. If you love them, that’s fine.

However, my feelings on Avatar have adjusted a little bit. And that’s thanks entirely to seeing the trailer on its own, not surrounded by other projects, giving me the ch🍌ance to engage with it and really take in what was being shown.

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Neyti🗹ri is Avatar's best character, a🐷nd the third movie needs to be about her

I’m not saying I’m now an avowed Avatar fan. But I must admit, 📖I do want to learn more about the new characters and tribes being introduced – I’m a sucker for world-building and for the first time I want to know a bit about the Pandora of the films.

If this trailer had been released online, with or without an event tied to it, I would have passively watched it on my phone after the fact. Instead, I was basically a captive audience, phone in my pocket, watching the larger-than-life trailer on the big screen. And as of the writing of this piece on Friday, in-theater remains the only way to see the clip. The same goes for the very light tease for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. It won’t be in theaters until next ye꧑ar, but for a teaser of t♏he film, you have to go hunt it down in theaters.

This is how trailers were originally meant to be shown, so you can fully grasp the scale and scope of what’s being presented in the way they’re meant to be seen. It’s a lot harder 🐎to capture that spirit when the trailer is simply stuck on the end of a two-hour prerecorded ‘stre🦄aming event’ that exists for little more than to juice your YouTube numbers.

imgi_1_cf7he1ify4unbs25tgnatyydri2.jpeg
Science Fiction
Adventure
Fantasy
Release Date
December 19, 2025
Director
Jam🔯es Cameron
Writers
꧅ ⛄ Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa, James Cameron
Producers
🐭 Jon Landau, James Cameron ꦓ
Prequel(s)
♑ Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water

Cast

  • instar53884470.jpg
    Sam Worthington
    Jake Sully
  • instar53766035.jpg
    Zoe Saldana
    Neytiri
  • instar52339277.jpg
    Sigourney Weaver
    Kiri
  • instar53563807.jpg
    Stephen Lang
    Colonel Miles Quaritch

Franchise(s)
Avatar