Here’s my lukewarm thanks to Columbia for making the trailer to Bad Boys II in an easy-to-download zip format. It’s nice to see that at least one Hollywood studio is trying to make life easier for the fans. Sadly, even when Hollywood tries to be more fan-friendly, they screw it up. The QuickTime movie that you download has a nasty little piece of code in it that launches your web browser at the end of the trailer and directs you to the Bad Boys website whether you want to go or not. I’m sure the suits at the studio would claim that they did this for the convenience of fans. I, on the other hand, have a different take. If you ask me, this isn’t a hell of a lot different than the tactics used by those who embed viruses in multimedia files. Good going Columbia, you’ve graduated to the ranks of the script kiddies. While Columbia at least makes a half-assed effort, Warner Brothers doesn’t even attempt to be as fan-friendly. Two of their latest trailer releases, Gods And Generals (not like anybody would care if they saw that trailer anyway) and Terminator 3 aren’t available to be saved for later viewing off-line. What’s worse, if you want to see the full screen version of the T3 trailer, you will have to go through the hassle of upgrading to QuickTime 6. Get a clue Warner, making life so difficult for those that want to see what are essentially commercials for your movies is not a smart business plan. I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I will still be saying it years from now, but… I get that Hollywood is a little freaked about the prospect of illegal distribution of entire movies on the internet, but stopping the distribution of trailers is just insane. Marketing 101 – the more people that see these trailers, the more people that are likely going to go see the movie. Conversely, make movie fans jump through hoops to see the trailers, and they are likely going to say screw it, and not bother. A sentiment which they may still have in their heads when it comes time to plunk down their cash to see the movie in a theater. The execs at Warner might want to take a cue from their sister company New Line, which made the trailers for the latest Lord Of The Rings movie easily accessible to fans, including giving them the option of downloading a zip file. If you ask me, that gesture probably didn’t hurt The Two Towers when it raked in truckloads of cash. As a side note, Paramount made it damn difficult to download the full screen version of the Star Trek: Nemesis trailer and that movie could end up being the biggest bomb of the Star Trek series. Sure, the movie stunk up the theater, but had Paramount been slightly less draconian with fans, they may have been more inclined to support the movie. Maybe not, but I know I’m less inclined to shell out money for a movie when I’ve been treated poorly by those making it.

¶ 2/04/2003 06:13:00 PM

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