On Monday, iTunes Trailers debuted a new vignette for the upcoming sci-fi action film "Looper," starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. A vignette, not a trailer.
"The teaser trailer is going to be right here on iTunes Trailers in three days," said director Rian Johnson at the end of the video. "So, come back here and check it out."
As the Los Angeles Times reports, trailers for trailers are all the rage in Hollywood at the moment. "Looper" happens to be the fourth high-profile release to attempt the tactic in the last few months, following in the footsteps of "Prometheus," "Breaking Dawn Part 2" and even "Total Recall."
"We teased the teaser," Fox Chief Marketing Officer Oren Aviv told Times reporter Ben Fritz about the "Prometheus" teaser. "And it was viewed 29.7 million times."
That's all well and good, but does anyone actually like watching trailers for trailers? HuffPost Entertainment didn't post the "Looper" teaser, if only because it felt like overkill; why watch a teaser for a teaser of a movie when you can watch the actual teaser just a few days later?
Apparently because you want to watch them.
Online trailers are on pace to get viewed seven billion times in 2012 -- a record that has Hollywood marketing executives, and the people who make the trailers, salivating. One trailer-editing company even suggested to the Times that trailer debuts were as big as opening weekend. Which must make trailers for trailer debuts the new trailers? Which makes the actual movies almost irrelevant?
So! What do you think, HuffPost readers? Are you happy with watching trailers for trailers? Let us know in the poll below!
[via LAT]
VIDEOS: The 10 Most-Viewed Trailers Of 2012
