Just to satisfy a curiosity (and to get me subscribed to my own damn thread … I’ve not been getting e-mail updates on this), what was the music used in the trailer for the original Matrix? I distinctly recall it being a lift from something, but I don’t have the trailer to hand any more and I can’t recall exactly what it was.
Nope, it was Basil Poledouris’ original piece “Riders of Doom” from Conan the Barbarian, which as you mentioned sounds similar to “Carmina Burana” (and was the source of an argument with an idiot friend of mine who insisted that “Carmina Burana” was, in fact, the soundtrack from Conan, despite being shown the soundtrack liner notes and my offer of playing the soundtrack for him…). Both are fairly thrilling music, and neither has any place in any movie starring Richard Gere. (Dear God, they get Connery to play King Arthur and it’s in that steaming pile of celluloid?)
Great, now I’ve got this image of Elroy being the final hope of a desperate Star League against Zur and the Ko-Dan Armada…
Dangit - you stole my post.
To make this more than just a ‘me too’, I’ll add that the trailer for Minority Report used Bishop’s countdown.
One that I’ve noticed being used in trailers is the music that I think of as the “he-just-knocked-it-out-of-the-park” theme from The Natural.
The dramatic choral piece? That was Enigma’s In the Eyes of Truth.
I’ll add…a few trailer for From the Earth to the Moon used a bit from the Waterworld soundtrack, when they discover “Dryland.” And I think I’ve heard other bits from Waterworld in other things, too.
I’ve noticed the music from the various Batman movies (Batman Returns, particularly) appearing in various trailers. A lot of Danny Elfman’s stuff gets retasked for trailers of often wildly different movies. I’ve noticed Last of the Mohicans’ soundtrack popping up more recently.
What happened to soundtracks from movies being actual soundtracks? Not, y’know, the pop song they played 15 seconds of during that one scene in the diner that was later cut from the movie. It’s basically the last source of non-irritant new classical music, IMO.
The song “Treat Her Right” from the Commitments soundtrack seems to pop up in a lot of trailers, usually sappy romantic comedies.
“Ronin” from the Last Samurai soundtrack is being used more and more often, from what I understand. It’s even in the “Spider-Man 2” trailer. (It’s the music that sounds like someone playing a Taiko drum inside your skull. 
)
The TV spots for Les Misérables (Liam Neeson, Uma Thurman) used music from Titanic. It’s what made me decide not to go see it, because I thought it was just trying to be a rip-off. I know better now and wish I’d seen it in the theater.
It seems like you hear the music from Unfaithful all the time now. I heard it most recently in a trailer for Vanity Fair. It doesn’t work at all there.
They now distinguish the two kinds as:
‘soundtrack’ = pop music the label is trying to shill and is freakin’ everywhere.
‘score’ = the orchestral music you really want but is now annoyingly hard to find.
I thought it was Enigma, because all Enigma albums sound identical, but I didn’t know which bit - because all Enigma albums sound identical. Thanks.
(I’m still not getting e-mail notifications for this thread, you know. How annoying.)
The Fugitive music is also used a lot in trailers. Usually for thrillers and such.
http://www.filmmusic.com/trailers/
is a great site for questions about the music used in trailers.
Incidentally, The Chronicles of Riddick also features music by Danny Elfman.
The opening to the song “More Human Than Human” by Rob Zombie has been used over and over in commercials and trailers.