# Do movie trailer narrators still exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 6, 2021, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473 "2021-04-06T08:24:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/1 "2021-04-06T08:24:10Z")
I was just watching something recent that was making fun of “Movie trailer voice guy” and the whole IN A WORLD ONE MAN STEPS UP TO THE CHALLENGE cliche speech but it made me realize, isn’t that pretty much a dead concept? Every single trailer I’ve seen for the past decade either has all the narration done via out-of-context in-movie dialog, or more rarely has a character from the movie narrate in the first person. Every single time I’ve heard an unrelated person (almost always a man with a deep voice) narrate in the past decade has been in the parody role. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/2 "2021-04-06T08:44:31Z")
Well Don La Fontaine is dead. And that whole “in a world” thing was his schtick. > **[Don LaFontaine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine?wprov=sfla1)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Donald Leroy LaFontaine (August 26, 1940 – September 1, 2008) was an American voice actor who recorded more than 5,000 film trailers and hundreds of thousands of television advertisements, network promotions, and video game trailers over four decades. > He became identified with the phrase "In a world...", used in so many movie trailers that it became a cliché. Widely known in the film industry, the man whose nicknames included "Thunder Throat", ... ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/3 "2021-04-06T08:58:32Z")
ETA: Significant quote from wiki… “After his death, voice-overs in film trailers became rare, with most trailers now relying on music, sound effects, and dialogue taken from the film.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/4 "2021-04-06T12:53:23Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > “After his death, voice-overs in film trailers became rare, with most trailers now relying on music, sound effects, and dialogue taken from the film.” It started before his death, though. As far as I can tell, trailer voice overs started disappearing in the late 1990s. _Jurassic Park_ (1993) and _Braveheart_ (1995) both had VO; _The Phantom Menace_ and _The Matrix_ (both 1999) didn’t. _Independence Day_ (1996) may have been the watershed moment - the film was lauded for its innovative marketing campaign, and IIRC, its trailers didn’t have VO. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/5 "2021-04-06T13:00:11Z")
The movie [In a World…](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294677/) takes a fictional look at this fading industry. There must be a whole generation that has no notion of the voiceover era. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/6 "2021-04-06T13:19:38Z")
I can’t think of movie trailer voice-overs, without thinking of this promo for the Jerry Seinfeld film “Comedian”: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fVDzuT0fXro/hqdefault.jpg "Comedian Movie Trailer") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVDzuT0fXro) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/7 "2021-04-06T13:31:31Z")
I think a big factor is that audiences didn’t need to get up to speed on the type of fantasy film that required the “In a world” and the like People are used to seeing strange worlds or situations in movies, so there’s no need to bring up the fact. Note that most classic Hollywood trailers didn’t have narrators; they used text. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/8 "2021-04-06T13:56:13Z")
This Youtube video explains why the movie trailer voiceover disappeared: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/VhaL1UYsUmc/maxresdefault.jpg "Why the Movie Trailer Voice Disappeared - Cheddar Explains") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhaL1UYsUmc) TL;DW: When Don LaFontaine died, trailer voiceovers were already on the way out. His unfortunate demise simply accelerated a trend. A shift to established franchises like Harry Potter and Marvel meant that audiences were already familiar with the material, lessening the need for introductions from the voiceover guy. Plus, with on-demand streaming, viewers could watch the trailers over and over, again lessening the need for voiceover guy to set the scene. Trailers nowadays use dialog from the film or have the actors record new dialog specifically for the trailer. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/9 "2021-04-06T14:13:57Z")
> [@Turek](#): > > I can’t think of movie trailer voice-overs, without thinking of this promo for the Jerry Seinfeld film “Comedian”: I immediately thought of that when I saw the thread, and was hoping someone had linked to it. That narration really feels like a bygone era… “In a time… when movies strived to be films, and films needed to be… tremendous.” [/LaFontaineVoice] I started searching for trailers with voice-over, and they really do seem like another era, where movies need to be explained to the hapless public who’d be lost otherwise. … If you haven’t seen that Comedian trailer, do so. _“A robot…renegade cop.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-movie-trailer-narrators-still-exist/939473/10 "2021-04-06T15:25:50Z")
> [@digs](#): > > If you haven’t seen that Comedian trailer, do so. _“A robot…renegade cop.”_ You’re fired! Don’t forget this one! A classic: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JQRtuxdfQHw/hqdefault.jpg "5 Guys in a Limo (better audio)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRtuxdfQHw)