Wired: Why Fan Trailers Are Often Better Than the Real Thing

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Angela Watercutter of Wired.com got in touch a couple of weeks ago and said she was doing a story about fan trailers and would like to talk about the John Carter Fan Trailers we did.  Looks like the article is out now (it’s actually been out a few days and we missed it until now) ….. and kind of features the John Carter situation a little more prominently than expected.  A nice journey back  to the days when we were still waiting, and hoping, for John Carter to perform better than the doomsayers were predicting. Oh well . . . . .

Why Fan Trailers Are Often Better Than the Real Thing

by Angela Watercutter

Back in early 2012, the fan buzz around the upcoming film John Carter was, well, not great. It had a promising director in Andrew Stanton and what looked like great special effects, but thanks to some of the early teasers hopes weren’t high. Then, a new trailer for the film appeared online and soon enough people started getting excited about the new Taylor Kitsch vehicle.

The weird thing? That trailer wasn’t released by the film’s studio—Disney—it was released by a guy named Michael D. Sellers. An independent filmmaker and longtime fan of John Carter creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sellers thought that the trailers released for the film had been a bit lackluster, and after the movie’s Super Bowl trailer proved equally disappointing, he decided to make his own.

2 comments

  • What a cool way to be featured! Folks outside of the ERB fan circles took note of what happened with Michael’s trailer(s) and are continuing to recognize those efforts as something special. I hope the recognition encourages more people to “take up the cause” for whatever projects they support.

  • This article feels odd to me. It mixes two things that I don’t think have anything in common. On one side there’s what the article promises, which are “fan trailers better than the real thing”, which is pretty much limited to John Carter, and fan reinterpretations of official trailers, which we saw in full swing with Man of Steel. That’s not the same approach. I’ve seen a lot of fan-made trailers now based on Man of Steel, thanks to you Michael, but I won’t call any of them better than the official ones. Same thing for The Avengers. For John Carter on the other hand, ALL fan-made trailers were better than the official ones, without any exception.

    Anyway, it’s nice to see John Carter still mentioned in articles though. 🙂

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