No, I am not sure when we’ll actually get a second full-length peek at the Russo Bros.’ “Iron Man and the Deathly Hallows Part I.” I would have thought they would have launched the tease with A Wrinkle in Time, but instead they used that fantasy flick as a launching pad for Mary Poppins Returns and Christopher Robin. The next month is going to see a deluge of “not Disney” big flicks, like Tomb Raider, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Ready Player One and Rampage, so any one of those flicks could be the lucky recipient.
Under normal circumstances, I would tell you that Walt Disney’s Avengers: Infinity War was the definition of a movie that barely needed a single teaser, let alone a followup full-on trailer. And I am still hopeful that Marvel and Walt Disney will use the whole “10th anniversary of the MCU” thing to sell Infinity War with a healthy helping of nostalgia, so as to avoid actually having to reveal much in the way of plot, character beats or setpieces. But circumstances have changed just a bit to the point where, yeah, they kind of need to offer a second trailer sometime in the near future.
So, just for my own entertainment, here are three reasons why, oddly enough, there is actually a need for a second trailer for a movie that is already preordained to be one of the biggest movies of the year, if not of all time.
They need to promote the new release date.
This one is pretty obvious. And perhaps, if they feel like waiting, they’ll hold off on that trailer until March 27, where it will play in theaters with Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One and go out exactly one month before the film’s theatrical release. Sure, one month out may be late for a movie like this to offer advance tickets, but it’s not like folks aren’t going to gobble them up whenever they become available. But since Disney went and moved the worldwide release date, specifically the North American release date, up a week from May 4 to April 27, they now need a major piece of theatrical advertising that proclaims the new release date.
They get to promote the Black Panther connection.
This is not that different from the Wonder Woman-to-Justice League situation, but hopefully with a happier ending. Now that T’Challa’s solo flick is on its way to becoming Marvel’s biggest solo superhero flick of all time (and the biggest comic book earner in North America), Marvel has a huge advantage in being able to sell the Avengers flick as a glorified Black Panther 1.5. Since a big chunk of the movie actually takes place in Wakanda and will presumably feature not just Chadwick Boseman but his popular supporting cast (Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, etc.), there is value in promoting the flick to folks for whom Black Panther was their first theatrical MCU experience.
It gives Disney cover for Wrinkle in Time and Solo.
As much as we like to dissect and analyze the individual performances of each individual film as if each one is a make-or-break proposition for the respective studio, that’s not always the case. Even if we argue, for example, that Star Wars: The Last Jedi “should” have made $1.4 billion worldwide instead of $1.3b, we must also note that Black Panther wasn’t exactly expected to flirt with $1.3b just two months later. Ditto Cars 3 outright bombing but Coco over performing overseas. So offering a new trailer for a new Avengers flick becomes a kind of distraction, or a sleight-of-hand to offer an unmitigated positive to distract from the more questionable releases.
Touting a super-sized preordained smash hit helps lessen or obscure the less positive stories. It allows Disney to distract from the potentially underwhelming initial performance (and initial critical reception) of A Wrinkle in Time. It also allows Disney to keep their newest Star Wars Story close to the vest. If we’re speaking optimistically, it’s not unlike how the hype around Star Wars: The Force Awakens allowed Disney to mitigate The Good Dinosaur becoming Pixar’s first flop and it allowed them to offer a comparatively low-key initial marketing launch for Captain America: Civil War. It’s a win/win even if Wrinkle in Time recovers and if Solo turns out to be a solid Star Wars story.
