# Movie Trailers: Our Game and A Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 9, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231 "2011-05-09T03:34:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/1 "2011-05-09T03:34:52Z")
My family and I have a fun and silly little game we play where we try to guess the number of previews that will be shown before whatever movie we are going to see at the cinema. I’d read somewhere once before that the industry standard is five. We’ve seen as few as none and as many as eight, but the average definitely seems to be five. So much so that we’ve talked about eliminating five as a choice. OK, that was pretty much just background. Here’s my question: Who/what determines the number of previews shown at a movie? The theater? The distributor? The studio? Does the same movie get the same previews all across the country? I honestly have no idea who picks the previews. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/2 "2011-05-09T22:25:59Z")
Hmmm… I have trouble imagining the theatre playing previews that advertise it’s copetitor’s coming attractions. (Best preview I recall - went to see “A Private Function”, a highbrow british comedy about social status and pig manure, and the preview was for Rambo II, a completely different audience…) ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/3 "2011-05-09T22:30:49Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Hmmm… I have trouble imagining the theatre playing previews that advertise it’s copetitor’s coming attractions. The theater chains where I live all play the same movies. The competition isn’t for who’s going to get to show \*\*\*Fast Five \*\*\*(all of them will), the competition is for who gives you best moving going experience (quality of the seats, concessions, cleanliness of the bathrooms, size of the popcorn, how much butter you get, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/4 "2011-05-10T05:03:41Z")
But … who decides? Who determines which and how many? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/5 "2011-05-10T13:29:00Z")
> [@Girl\_Next\_Door](#): > > But … who decides? Who determines which and how many? I think it’s a combination of both the movie studio and the local theater. I know that the early versions of the \*Hangover 2 \*trailer were only shown with the release of _Source Code_, which would lend one to believe that the movie studio had decision rights on when it was shown. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/6 "2011-05-10T19:56:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Hmmm… I have trouble imagining the theatre playing previews that advertise it’s copetitor’s coming attractions. One of the previews for _Thor_ (based on a Marvel Comics character) was for _Green Lantern_ (a DC character). The rights for the movies are owned by different companies, and they were made by different studios, but they appeal to much the same audience, so they get each others’ previews. The previews before _Thor_ consisted of _Green Lantern_, _Captain America_, _X-Men: First Class_ (all comic book superheroes) and _Conan_ (like _Thor_, featuring a buff shirtless warrior). So they were definitely going for similar movies. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/7 "2011-05-10T21:04:29Z")
I suspect that the studio generally has say over some of the trailers in front of its movie, but not all of them. My suspicion is that the theater decides what else to put there; I also suspect that the other studios target which competitors’ movies they’d like to have their trailers run with, based on similar audiences. I also suspect that the studios pay the theater chains to run the trailers. I saw Thor last night; the trailers included two other Marvel movies (X-Men First Class and Captain America), but the other four trailers were from a variety of studios. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/8 "2011-05-10T21:11:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The previews before _Thor_ consisted of _Green Lantern_, _Captain America_, _X-Men: First Class_ (all comic book superheroes) and _Conan_ (like _Thor_, featuring a buff shirtless warrior). So they were definitely going for similar movies. I didn’t get either Green Lantern or Conan; I got Super 8, Columbiana (Zoe Saldana hunting down the gangsters who killed her parents, it looks like), Pirates of the Caribbean IV, and another one which escapes me at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Silophant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Silophant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silophant)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/9 "2011-05-11T04:32:10Z")
(Recently ex-)Theater projectionist here. Essentially the process works like this: We place four (usually) or five (sometimes) trailers before each film. The film may have come from the distributor with a trailer attached, if so, that doesn’t count for our purposes. For each film, we get a list from the studio of 2-4 trailers that must be shown with it, sometimes for certain periods of time. For example, on movie A, we might have trailer B on it for the first week, then switch it out for trailer C. If the studio gave us a list of less than four trailers to put on, we fill in the remaining spots with trailers of our choice, usually for movies the GM likes. The exception is, since we do directly compete with the other theater in our small city, never sharing movies, we remove any trailers for movies they are currently showing, no matter what the distributor says. TL;DR version: 4-6 trailers, usually 5. The studio determines most trailer placements, but individual chains and theaters have some choice. YMM, of course, V. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/10 "2011-05-11T17:12:49Z")
Oh, right, I also saw one for Super 8, too, now that you mention it. And Cowboys vs. Aliens, come to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/11 "2011-05-11T21:19:04Z")
> [@Silophant](#): > > (Recently ex-)Theater projectionist here. Essentially the process works like this: We place four (usually) or five (sometimes) trailers before each film. The film may have come from the distributor with a trailer attached, if so, that doesn’t count for our purposes. For each film, we get a list from the studio of 2-4 trailers that must be shown with it, sometimes for certain periods of time. For example, on movie A, we might have trailer B on it for the first week, then switch it out for trailer C. If the studio gave us a list of less than four trailers to put on, we fill in the remaining spots with trailers of our choice, usually for movies the GM likes. The exception is, since we do directly compete with the other theater in our small city, never sharing movies, we remove any trailers for movies they are currently showing, no matter what the distributor says. > > TL;DR version: 4-6 trailers, usually 5. The studio determines most trailer placements, but individual chains and theaters have some choice. YMM, of course, V. From a friend who managed a multi-screen theater, this sounds very accurate. The only other item I remember is that the length of the movie figured into the number of trailers. A short movie would get more trailers added than a longer one. That was because the theater liked to keep their showing start times roughly the same from week to week, to avoid audiences being upset at arriving just after the movie had started. They also had ‘local’ shorts they ran, which counted in the trailer time: ads for the concession stand, reminders to turn off cell phones, admonitions about behavior, etc. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-trailers-our-game-and-a-question/581231/12 "2011-05-11T21:27:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, right, I also saw one for Super 8, too, now that you mention it. And Cowboys vs. Aliens, come to think of it. That was, indeed, the other one which I saw on Monday, and had forgotten. 😃