Does Warner Bros. Know How to Use the Internet?
The 'Suicide Squad' trailer has been social network suicide.
Just to get this out of the way: Have you seen the trailer for Suicide Squad yet? It’s awesome. It’s shaping up to be the kind of movie I was hoping for when it was first announced. The bad side of justice isn’t looking bad at all.
But the release of the trailer has demonstrated that Warner Bros. doesn’t know how to Internet. After screening the trailer at the San Diego Comic-Con panel, fans pirated it and uploaded it because it’s 2015 and people can do that easily now. Warner Bros. was then “forced” to upload the trailer officially in hi-res glory, and it did it with its arms crossed and lips pouted.
Posted with the trailer on Facebook was this super passive-aggressive note.
Good to know that a multi-million dollar media empire has the emotional maturity of a teenager planning her Sweet Sixteen.
Why the attitude? How exactly were they going to stop rabid, media-literate fans from pirating the trailer? Take away 8,000 phones and put them in a basket? Suicide Squad is a blockbuster movie, but it’s also a risk. Like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, they’re coasting on A-listers to sell it, not totally beloved, household characters like, uh, Deadshot. Preventing its trailer from being watchable is not how to promote a risk movie.
In Warner Bros. Marketing President Sue Kroll’s letter, she expressed that the trailer should only have been for the Comic-Con faithful. I’m faithful, I was at Comic-Con, and even I didn’t get to see the trailer in Hall H. Getting into Hall H is an all-night test of attrition of the human soul, and also a waste because I reserved a hotel room. Why would I sleep outside by the San Diego bayfront?
The Comic-Con experience should be seeing it first just moments before it hits online, followed by the Hollywood stars smiling through their pearly white teeth on stage. The trailer isn’t the attraction, it’s being there that should inspire people to fight tooth and nail for Comic-Con tickets.
But the most baffling aspect of Warner Bros.’ passive aggressiveness? They could learn from themselves. They uploaded the Batman v. Superman trailer just moments after it debuted at Hall H. So why are they so up in arms about Suicide Squad? Warner Bros., do you know what you’re doing?
