Cinemas began to take notice of this, adding to their
film screening schedules the words "This film includes the trailer for Star
Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace". For the first time in history films were
cashing in on a trailer's audience instead of the other way around with the
box office takings of those films showcasing the trailer going up by an average
of 25%. (S)
Star Wars also set a precedent in terms of using the Internet to showcase a
trailer. In the five days immediately following the release of the first teaser
the official website was visited no less than 3.5 million times, (S)
with fans downloading the two minutes of footage onto their own computers to
watch again and again. The original teaser and the standard trailer that followed
in March of 1999, are still available to be downloaded at The
Official Star Wars Website which also contains other audio and visual clips.
When
George Lucas released a two minute teaser trailer into American cinemas in late
1998 for his upcoming film Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace it was
unlikely that even he could have predicted the outcome. Fans who had been waiting
for a sequel (or prequel as it turned out) to the cult trilogy had been doing
so for over fifteen years and were desperate for any kind of glimpse. Over 2,000
prints of the trailer were struck and distributed in America alone "representing
millions of dollars in lab costs and advertising time" (S).
But this was nothing compared to the reaction from the fans.
Everything
that was released by Lucas related to his new film was being hurriedly bought
up by anxious fans as soon as it hit the shops be it dolls, food or clothing.
Until the teaser was released though, a full seven
months before the film, no-one had seen any actual footage. On the day of its
release, Friday November 20th 1998, the teaser created marketing history. People
were buying tickets to films, not to see the film but to see a trailer. Never
before had any trailer had this much attention. It showed the fans exactly what
they had been wanting to see, visuals of characters old and new and sweeping
computer animated panoramas.
"Apparently,
the prospect of the trailer caused such excitement in the States that people
have been buying tickets for movies they don't want to see just to catch the
preview. Showbiz mag Variety swears two-thirds of the 500-strong audience at
an afternoon showing of the film The Siege in Los Angeles walked out immediately
after seeing the trailer" (S)
