'If I Stay' debuts novel prologue trailer

Posted Thursday, June 5, 2014 at 5:10 PM Central
Last updated Thursday, June 5, 2014 at 5:10 PM Central

by John Couture

With all of the increased competition for the attention span of consumers, Hollywood has had to adapt and become innovative in order to remain relevant. Sure, tentpole titles still rule the day in Summer and you better believe that I'm going to waiting in line to see Star Wars: Episode VII on December 18, 2015, but the rise of the Internet, video games and the like have made it much more difficult for studios to deliver an audience for the rest of their films.

Of course, it doesn't help matters when "the rest" actually comprises about 90% of your film library. So, Hollywood has had to explore new and different ways to market their films in the last 15 years or so.

Certain films have embraced the Internet and social media to connect with fans, while others have tinkered with trailers and format to find new and better ways to connect with their audience. The idea of the "movie stinger" became popular to give audiences a reason to sit through the long and boring credits. Many times, these stingers either set up sequels or in the case of Wild Things revealed how the shocking ending actually played out "behind the scenes" of the film itself.

One area that has probably seen the most experimentation and innovation has been the movie trailer. Earlier this year The Other Woman debut the first ever Emoji trailer and earlier this week, Sex Tape brought back the "pop up video" motif for a trailer.

While I enjoyed the concept back in the day for music videos, there's something a bit tame here for an R rated film called Sex Tape. But I guess that's what you get when the MPAA is invovled, but that's a whole different story. They did point out that the number in the trailer is real and working. Go ahead, call. I'll wait. The number is (310) 760-7511.

The latest innovation isn't as racy and actually makes a lot of sense, especially for films based on books. Warner Bros. has created a "Prologue Trailer" for its film If I Stay, which is based on a young adult book. Or at least I think it is because I'll be honest until I saw this trailer, I was sure this was just another torture porn horror film.

But alas no, it's not. It's a film about a young woman who is in an accident and finds herself in a coma. The movie/book plays out as the young woman's spirit sees her life play out before her eyes before making the decision to return to her body or to move on to whatever lies beyond.

After watching the trailer and some preliminary research on Wikipedia, I've come to the conclusion that the film really plays up a sexy version of Chloë Grace Moretz, which ew, and that there's a followup book (sequel anyone?) whose title basically gives away the ending of the film.

I'm not sure that this Prologue Trailer will do anything in terms of getting me to watch the film. Let's face it, I'm not their core demographic, unless I was a lecherous old man. But, I like the idea of a Prologue Trailer. It allows filmmakers to expand the experience of a film beyond the cinema and this entanglement can only help Hollywood to leverage this relationship in the future.

Can you imagine if they had done a Prologue or Epilogue trailer for, say, Harry Potter? Now that would have impressive indeed. If I Stay is set to hit theaters on August 22.