Like a lot of folks around the globe, I was looking forward to the release of the first trailer for what until now, has been known simply as Avengers 4. With so much about the movie shrouded in mystery, many people were probably hoping that the trailer would provide them with clues as to what will happen now that Thanos has wiped out half the universe (as well as finally getting a confirmed title). To say the first trailer – a definite teaser, if ever there was one – gives very little away is an understatement (though it won’t stop a tonne of exhaustive deconstructions and detailed theorising about what’s in the trailer from hitting the Internet in the next few days). But that’s easily the best thing about it.
For once, we have a trailer for a huge, upcoming blockbuster movie that doesn’t give anything away, and which won’t spoil anything for fans when the movie is released in April 2019.
How cool is that? And how cool is it that Disney and Marvel have taken this approach? In this day and age of media saturation and information overload, when everybody wants everything now (and pretty much spoon-fed to them), how refreshing is it that we still don’t know anything about the content and the storyline of Avengers: Endgame? Full marks to the Russo brothers then if it was their idea, and for keeping us all deliberately in the dark for a while longer. Let’s hope the next trailer keeps us just as much in the dark as this one has. And let’s hope that other studios and production companies and distributors learn a valuable lesson from this: that less is always better than more, and that audiences don’t always want to know the ins and outs of a movie months before they get a chance to see it (okay, that’s unlikely to happen, but we can all wish, can’t we?).
