I saw an ad on TV for a film called *Life *(trailer). It looks like clips from a fully produced film. But it won’t be released until Memorial Day next year, another SEVEN months. What in the heck are they going to spend the next seven months doing? I don’t know anything about the inside of the movie business but I don’t think you shoot trailer scenes, do post-production on the trailer, then go on to finish shooting the rest of the film. I guess you could, but my impression is more like they shoot the whole film then go into post-production.
The marketing people decided that the film would be released on Memorial Day. Even if the film is 100% complete, it’s a marketing decision: when is the best time to release this film, given its subject and what films are being released on particular dates.
Since it seems to be a science fiction films, and they are traditionally released in the summer, that would be the main reason for the marketing decision.
As for putting out the trailer: it’s never to early to try to build buzz for a film.
I saw trailers in the theater for both Seventh Son and Secretariat 14 months each before they hit theaters. Seven months is nothing.
I saw the opening of Lion King, literally just the opening, in a special sneak peak of the movie. It was about 12 months early. The animation was complete; I believe it was identical to the final movie’s opening.
My friend yelled out, “Wow, Disney’s going down with this one!”
We thought it looked ridiculously stupid. We were wrong.
For large scale productions, especially effects heavy ones like what you link to in the OP; the time from “start” to “release” can be years. With them the traditional pre, principle, post stages are not as clear cut.
Principle photography might ostensibly take place a year or even two before release date, yet the actors might have to do major reshoots weeks from release. The Star Wars movies, especially the prequels were notorious for this. The kid who plays Child!Vader seems to age and deage between shots (which might have been shot anytime between summer '97 to spring '99).
In the early Harry Potter films, the male leads seem to hit and unhit puberty throughout the first three (first two especially) films.
All this is to say, the fact a trailer is out has little relevance to how close a film of this type is ready for release.
They ran ads for the 2nd GI Joe movie, which was supposed to be one of that year’s summer “blockbuster” releases. Then they pulled it to retool it and didn’t release it until January. Shame, the early trailers looked pretty good, way better than the first movie. After they moved it, I lost any interest in it. Even when it showed up placed I could watch it for free (forget if it was the 'flix or one of the premium channel’s OnDemand sections) I never bothered.