Movie marketing has become increasingly digitized in recent years, with more and more studios opting in for viral campaigns and social media outreach. Fox's upcoming Logan has been widely advertised on Twitter by director James Mangold, who has kept fans updated regularly with information, images, and artwork from the movie. This move towards online marketing has made it easier than ever to analyse the hype of upcoming films. Video technology company ZEFR has taken advantage of this to offer insights into cultures on YouTube, collating the global views of trailers and compiled a chart of the most watched filmtrailers of the week.
Despite James Mangold's highly personalised social marketing skills however, the buzzed-about second trailer for Logan was beaten to the top spot for global views this past week. The power was stronger with the new trailer for Lionsgate's Power Rangers, which launched on the same day as the new Logan preview, ahead of its bow in theaters.
According to ZERF and subsequently reported by THR, the second Power Rangers trailer racked up a noteworthy 28.3 million views, compared to Logan trailer #2's 18.8 million views over the past week. Universal's The Mummy trailer received a boost over the same frame, leaping up by 208% from its previous weekly views for a total of 4.9 million views. Other trailers that made waves the last week include the first trailers for Universal's The Fate of the Furious and Michael Bay's Transformers sequel, The Last Knight, as well as the full-length teaser trailer for Disney/Pixar's Cars 3 that debuted on ESPN.
Superheroes have thus stayed in charge as 2017 gets underway, after having accumulated the most global views among movie trailers for the entirety of 2016. The protagonists of Dean Israelite's Power Rangers reboot take to the superhero mantle zealously in the trailers for the film, providing a few comedic moments while setting up a tried-and-tested origin movie formula. Logan's trailers are more sombre by comparison, in-keeping with the emotionally-weighty tone of the movie. The trailer for Power Rangers instead embraces the franchise's inherent cheesiness, from its zany villains to its iconic catchphrase, and beloved Dinozords.
If the history of ZEFR's reports is anything to go by, global views of early trailers is not indicative of quality, but it is a decent indicator of success. Case in point: Suicide Squad sits in second place for last year's global movie trailer views and few recent superhero films have been as polarizing, yet it earned $745 million at the global box office. Suicide Squad and Power Rangers both feature a mismatched band of 'screw-ups' forced to fight together on the side of good, and they share a bright neon visual flair. These superficial similarities are reminder enough that Power Rangers is not guaranteed to be a hit, but the early signs are encouraging.
NEXT: Is Goldar Now Rita Repulsa's Zord?
Source: THR
