This week has been massive for movie trailer news. Earlier this week, DC dropped the first trailer for the eagerly anticipated Supergirl, giving fans their best look yet at Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El and our first glimpse of Jason Momoa’s Lobo. But that’s not the only trailer superhero fans have been buzzing about. Rumors have been swirling that the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday is coming soon as well—and now, we know those rumors are true. Fans will need to see Avatar: Fire and Ash four times if they want to catch everything.
Four Different Trailers, Four Different Weeks
A rumor circulating online this week suggested that the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday wouldn’t be just one trailer, but multiple trailers screened alongside the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash. Now The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that this is indeed the case. According to their report, there are four different trailers for the wildly anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Each trailer will play for one week attached to Avatar: Fire and Ash and will change weekly until all four have been rolled out. That means to see all four, fans will need to head to theaters to watch the next Avatar installment—which opens December 19th—multiple times.
Will Fans Really Go to Theaters Just for the Trailer?
The strategy of having four separate trailers, all playing with Avatar: Fire and Ash with a new one running each week, is certainly unique. While attaching eagerly anticipated movie trailers to theatrical releases is standard practice—it’s literally how it’s been done for decades and represents solid marketing—it’s the concept of four separate trailers that fans would presumably need to see in theaters each week that stands out.
This structure appears designed to offer a window of exclusivity, with the expectation that truly diehard Marvel fans would buy tickets to Avatar: Fire and Ash just to see the trailers rather than wait for them to eventually arrive online.
A Strategy to Boost Avatar’s Box Office?
If that’s the case, it seems Disney—the parent company behind both Avatar: Fire and Ash and Avengers: Doomsday—is pulling out all the stops to ensure the latest Avatar film becomes a major hit. While the first two films performed exceptionally well at the box office (each making over $2 billion), Fire and Ash carries a massive production budget and ranks among the most expensive films ever made. Wanting to do everything possible to ensure a return on investment and see the film become financially successful makes perfect sense.
However, there’s the question of whether MCU fans will really spend movie ticket money just to see a trailer—especially when it’s unclear how different each of the four trailers will be or exactly when they’ll appear online.
The Social Media Factor
In the age of cell phones and social media, it’s highly likely those trailers will circulate online quickly thanks to people filming them in theaters. There’s also the strong possibility that fans will simply wait until all four trailers become available for non-theatrical audiences through official channels.
Additionally, with Marvel’s typical marketing approach of releasing trailers widely online to maximize buzz and reach, keeping these trailers theater-exclusive for extended periods would represent a significant departure from their established strategy.
What This Means for Fans
Regardless of how it plays out, the report gives Marvel fans something more definitive regarding when the Avengers: Doomsday trailer is arriving. It had been speculated that the trailer would drop to compete with DC’s Supergirl trailer or even sometime this weekend. Now, it seems clear that fans just need to wait one more week before finally getting a look at what might be Marvel’s highest-stakes movie to date.
Whether you’re planning to catch all four trailers in theaters or waiting for the inevitable online release, the countdown to Avengers: Doomsday has officially begun.
Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters December 19th.
