Best Director in Literature Department of Huayu

Chapter 109 Unconventional Trailers and Wholesale (4K, Seeking Monthly Tickets)

As May arrives, the prelude to Hollywood's summer blockbuster season officially begins.

The air in Hollywood was thick with the smell of money and gunpowder, and major studios poured their marketing budgets into prime-time slots on major television networks.

Paramount's Mission: Impossible III has already launched its most intensive screenings in major theaters, Disney is busy promoting Pirates of the Caribbean 2, and Sony and Universal are also starting to promote their own summer blockbusters.

Fox is currently channeling all its core resources and marketing budget into the big-budget film "X-Men: A New World" which is set to release at the end of May.

X-Men 3: Last Stand is tilted.

However, at Fox's headquarters, a press conference to launch the promotional campaign for "The Devil Wears Prada" reached a stalemate.

"Lin, this is the final trailer from the marketing department. If there are no problems, it will be released simultaneously in 3,000 theaters across the United States next week as a trailer for X-Men 3."

The publicity director looked at the schedule in his hand and gestured to his secretary to turn off the lights in the conference room.

The screen lit up quickly.

This is a 9,000-second, extremely standard Hollywood commercial trailer, condensing Anne Hathaway's several costume changes in the film, Meryl Streep's cool and witty lines, and long stretches of traditional tropes where the male and female leads have misunderstandings due to work.

The trailer was cut into fragments and was overly flashy, giving it a cheap urban romantic comedy feel.

Marketing director Harvey explained: "We surveyed female audiences aged 18 to 35 across the United States, and they were most interested in workplace themes, romance, and expensive clothes. This trailer features the most eye-catching luxury fashion show scenes in the film, coupled with a lighthearted pace, which will definitely help us capture a significant share of the chick flick market during the summer season."

Harvey was clearly quite satisfied with this version of the trailer.

In fact, this is the most common promotional logic in Hollywood today: telling the audience what kind of movie it is, what stars are in it, and what jokes and conflicts there are.

Lin Ruiyang's expression began to betray his disbelief; he simply wondered why these naive, old white men had to be in charge of such a fashion film aimed at women.

"Mr. Harvey, this trailer sells 'The Devil Wears Prada' as just another ordinary romantic comedy that 20th Century Fox produces every year."

"Lin, I don't understand what you mean." Harvey's face fell.

"What's wrong with romantic comedies? Two-thirds of female viewers in the US will pay for romantic comedies every year because of the romantic tension and the handsome male lead."

We conducted three blind tests in Houston and Chicago, and the girls screamed the loudest when they saw Anne Hathaway entangled with two men on the streets of New York. That's the market, that's the dollar.

"That's because you've fed them so much industrial saccharin that they think movie theaters only have this kind of cloying sweetness."

"Mr. Harvey, if you still think of today's North American female audience as fools who only drool over fancy clothes and handsome faces, then Fox's financial statements this quarter will look terrible."

Lin Ruiyang slammed his fist on the table: "The Devil Wears Prada is not essentially a chick flick that lets girls have erotic dreams. The trailer you just edited turned Meryl Streep's oppressive presence into a comical cartoon villain and Anne Hathaway's struggles into childish love-struck behavior."

This is damaging my reputation and wasting Fox's theatrical programming.

Harvey was somewhat stunned by the barrage of highly aggressive technical terms, but as a senior executive at a major company, he couldn't possibly admit defeat in front of a Chinese-American director in his early twenties.

He turned to Elizabeth, who was sitting in the main seat, and explained, "President, Lin's artistic intuition may be very sharp, but publicity is a different story. We've already secured screening slots for 'X-Men: The Last Stand' in 3 theaters across the US, which is the most crucial traffic at the end of May."

Without a fast-paced, spoiler-filled, conflict-laden standard 90-second trailer, we simply couldn't grab the attention of popcorn viewers within the three-minute in-roll window!

"Who told you that trailers have to be cut into 90-second segments?" Lin Ruiyang interrupted Harvey directly.

He looked at the projectionist and snapped his fingers: "Take out the first reel of the finished film and cut directly from the first five minutes of the movie. Don't move a single frame, don't cut a single shot."

Mr. Harvey, this is the first official trailer for "The Devil Wears Prada."

These words immediately caused an uproar in the conference room.

"Using the first five minutes as a trailer? That doesn't follow the usual practices of unions and studios!"

"God, if the audience has already seen the first five minutes in the trailer, how can they feel a sense of novelty when they buy a ticket?"

'

"This is insane! This isn't a trailer, it's the actual movie leaked!"

Faced with the chorus of questions and exclamations from both sides of the long table, Lin Ruiyang did not react much; the real decision-makers were not them.

"Ms. President, Hollywood's marketing mindset has been stagnant for too long. You're obsessed with climax editing, obsessed with crushing all the best parts into two minutes."

But what was the result? Viewers felt they'd seen all the best parts of the movie just by watching the trailer, only to be left disappointed once they entered the theater.

Elizabeth did not immediately respond, and the argument in the meeting room gradually subsided as everyone turned to look at her.

After she finished her menthol cigarette, she finally spoke: "Lin, Hollywood invented the trailer in the last century and successfully sold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of movie tickets with a ninety-second and two-minute frame."

You're telling me now you want to break this framework and gamble the first five minutes of the film on a summer blockbuster?

"It's not about betting on the CEO; it's about precise targeting. Times have changed. Nowadays, trailers are all the same type, lacking originality, and audiences have become numb. Mr. Harvey's trailer only extended this numbness for ninety seconds."

"Let's show it to you then," Elizabeth instructed the projectionist.

"President!" Harvey's expression changed drastically as he tried to stop him. "This is not in accordance with..."

“I said, release him,” Elizabeth interrupted him coldly.

The projectionist didn't dare to delay and immediately pressed the start button.

Five minutes later, as Andy's interview ended, the video stopped playing.

"Harvey, after your trailer ended, all I remembered was the clothes. But after these five minutes, I want to know what happened next."

Harvey's expression turned somewhat grim, because he knew that those words had already decided the outcome.

However, Elizabeth did not fully support Lin Ruiyang: "Although I agree with your idea, five minutes is still too long. Compress it to within three minutes."

Lin Ruiyang was silent for two seconds, then nodded: "Okay."

He hadn't actually planned to cram the full five minutes into theatrical releases. The argument just now was essentially a struggle for control over the direction of the marketing campaign.

With Elizabeth's approval, the massive Fox machine demonstrated terrifying efficiency, and the two-minute and fifty-seven-second trailer was sent directly to the copy distribution centers of major theaters across the United States.

The first wave of Hollywood's summer blockbuster season exploded at the end of May during Memorial Day weekend with the release of "X-Men: The Last Stand".

At an AMC flagship theater in Century City, Los Angeles, the theater was packed to capacity with hundreds of superhero fans wearing mutant T-shirts.

This group of spectators, clutching popcorn and cola, eagerly awaited the visual spectacle of Magneto tearing the Golden Gate Bridge apart.

Suddenly, the lights in the screening room went completely dark.

This was followed by a series of fast-paced morning scenes, the content of which was conveyed extremely quickly, and the female audience members who had been chatting in the theater gradually quieted down...

The final image is from "THEDEVILWEARSPRADA," which will be released on June 30.

A few scattered whispers began to break out among the seated passengers: "Wait, is it over?"

"So what happens next?"

Did she eventually get the job?

"God, what movie was that? Meryl Streep is so cool!"

"Damn, I'm actually starting to look forward to a fashion film. Tell me quickly, did that country bumpkin finally get her hands on that shrew?"

Several girls who were initially uninterested in the movie took out their phones and wrote down the names, while the male superhero fans who had previously scoffed at chick flicks were now somewhat stunned.

A similar scene is unfolding simultaneously in more than 3,000 theaters across the United States.

The combined release of the trailer and the new poster quickly turned into a media frenzy that swept across the United States' mainstream media within the next 72 hours.

(See post-credits scene for the trailer)

The fashion media were the first to react.

Women's Wear Daily (WWD International Fashion News): "20th Century Fox seems to have done something very unusual. Instead of showing the audience fashion, parties, and love, they showed us how a girl is judged by an industry. The fashion queen, played by Meryl Streep, only appeared for a few minutes, but she made the entire New York fashion scene uneasy."

ELLE US: "We initially thought 'The Devil Wears Prada' would be a lighthearted urban romantic comedy, but the first trailer reveals a completely different message. It's a war about female ambition, workplace power, and identity reshaping. Surprisingly, it doesn't even try to pander to anyone."

Glamour: "What shocked the editorial team most wasn't the expensive costumes, but Anne Hathaway's demeanor on camera. She didn't seem like the lucky girl in a traditional romantic comedy; she was more like an ordinary person who had accidentally wandered into the heart of an empire. And everyone wanted to know if she could survive."

Subsequently, entertainment media outlets joined the discussion.

EntertainmentWeekly: "Hollywood hasn't seen a trailer like this in years. No fancy editing, no fast flashbacks, no artificially created climaxes. It just presents the movie's opening directly to the audience and then abruptly ends at the most crucial point. The result is that we're more willing to buy tickets than after watching a regular two-minute trailer."

Variety: "If this was a marketing experiment, then Fox may have made the right bet. According to theater feedback, audience discussion about The Devil Wears Prada far exceeded expectations after the premiere of X-Men 3. For a female-centric film with a budget of less than $40 million, this is a dangerous yet exciting sign."

Immediately afterwards, the internet began to take off.

At the time, a large number of viewers began to spontaneously discuss the topic on blogs, forums, and MySpace pages.

Some people repeatedly quoted Meryl Streep's cold line when she first appeared, some began to analyze the real ecology of the New York fashion magazine industry, and many young women discussed their bosses when they first entered the workforce in forums.

This discussion quickly attracted media attention.

USA Today: "The promotion of women's films in the past few years has always revolved around love, but The Devil Wears Prada unexpectedly ignited a discussion about work. Audiences are no longer discussing who will end up with whom, but who will become the next Miranda."

The New York Post: "New York office women seem to have already adopted this film as their own story. A new joke has even emerged in several Manhattan office buildings—if your boss asks you to revise a plan at 2 a.m., then congratulations, you've entered the Devil Wears Prada universe."

While Hollywood was fiercely competing for the summer blockbuster season among the six major studios, the French Riviera was also bringing the 59th Cannes International Film Festival to a close.

For executives at major Los Angeles film studios accustomed to sophisticated business calculations, the three major European film festivals should have been an elegant gathering for art-house directors and buyers of art-house cinemas.

However, on the closing night in late May, the Cannes jury, chaired by Chinese director Wong Kar-wai, pulled off a move that left the global film industry speechless.

The Palme d'Or was won by British director Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," a result that, while controversial, was within the range of predictions made by many media outlets.

What truly ignited global public opinion was the subsequent acting awards.

Wearing sunglasses, Wang Jiawei displayed extreme toughness and willfulness, directly breaking the traditional rules of spoils distribution.

This year's Best Actress award was not given to any single person, but was shared by six actresses from Almodóvar's "Volver" cast, including Penelope Cruz!

Before everyone could recover from the shock, another bombshell dropped in the Best Actor category, with all five male leads from the "Glorious Years" cast winning the award.

The next day, Wang Jiawei dominated the front pages of major media outlets.

"Wong Kar-wai turned Cannes into a film festival for directors, not for awards."

"This is the most personal Cannes Film Festival in recent years. Wong Kar-wai is not following the conventions; he is redefining the acting awards in his own way."

The French media were clearly more excited, with Cahiers du Cinéma dedicating four full pages to analyzing the jury's decision.

Some praised it, some criticized it; some felt it showed respect for the ensemble performance, while others thought it diminished the significance of the award itself.

But regardless of support or opposition, everyone has to admit one thing: the 59th Cannes Film Festival has been successfully recorded in history.