Hey… remember back in the good old days when movie studios put together trailers for their movies so that…. you know…. people would watch them? That’s why they made them right?
I mean, studios would even pay HUGE amounts of money to have TV stations play those trailers… they’d pay movie theaters HUGE dollars to play the trailers… all so as many people as possible would see them and get awareness and buzz out about the movie in question. Yup… those were the good old days. I think it was just yesterday.
But TODAY is a new day. Today Paramount ushers in a new era. An era where they don’t want you to see the trailers. Case In Point:
Yesterday here on The Movie Blog we talked about the new JJ Abrams monster movie that right now goes by the code name “Cloverfield” and about the cool trailer they played before the Transformers. The trailer got put up on Youtube and so we posted it here. It’s a TRAILER right? An ADVERTISEMENT right? They want as many people as possible to see it RIGHT?!?!?! Oh I forgot… that was yesterday thinking… and today is a new day.
Late last night I get a note… from the frigging Paramount Legal Rep to tell me to take the thing down. This is a trailer we’re talking about right? An advertisement right? Am I missing something here?
This letter is being written to you on behalf of Paramount
Pictures Corporation (hereinafter “Paramount”). Paramount is the owner
of rights in and to the unreleased “Cloverfield” motion picture
(hereinafter referred to as “Paramount Property”). No one is authorized
to copy, reproduce, distribute, or otherwise use Paramount Property
without the express written permission of Paramount.It has been brought to our attention that the website located at
“https://www.themovieblog.com/” for which you are the service provider is
distributing, displaying, and reproducing, unauthorized copies of the
Paramount Property. The specific URL from which this unauthorized copy
is being distributed, displayed and reproduced is:https://www.themovieblog.com/archives/2007/07/cloverfield_trailer.html
Look… Paramount is TOTALLY within their rights to request the stuff get taken down. It’s their stuff, and they can ask it to be removed. Totally within their rights. I’m not suggesting otherwise. But just because I’m ALLOWED to stick my privates in a termite den… doesn’t mean it’s smart.
As i side note, I FUCKING HATE getting letters from legal departments. If you have something to say or ask me… FUCKING DO IT YOURSELF. Don’t get your bloody legal department to do it. Get a PR person or someone working in publicity to send me a quick note. Getting letters from a bloody lawyer really bugs me. (Can you tell I’m not in a good mood today?)
So fuck it. No more Cloverfield trailer talk. Don’t want to risk getting another letter from the old Legal department.
I totally agree. In fact, I had to post about your Paramount e-mail on my film/music blog.
Good Fucking God! I meant aren’t as kind!!!! in the 3rd to last sentance!!! No more beer for me!!!!
sorry…that’s was meant to say unkind in the 3rd to last sentence!
Well…as I don’t agree with Paramount’s decision to anti-publicity in an obvious sense.
Is it fair to say that (John since you have a legal background of sorts) that a legal letter is the preventative thing to “slander” or “def. of character” suits in a sense? Perhaps the legal end of things is not only grose and very much not Canadian (until recently anyway) but it would be the most suitable course when involving two businesses? I’m not sure about this for sure, but I know in personal experiences that the personal emails become subject to various other claims such as harassment or some other legal crap?!?!?! 99% of the time it’s deemed unfounded in court…but the damn hassles aren’t worth it.
Do I agree with what they did, absolutely not because it prevents them from getting any free advertising from websites and support from the viewers of those sites. Legally does it make sense to have a shit shot letter written, perhaps…it’s one of the fucked up things. John whether you think it or not, not all media sites are as kind and law driven as you are in these terms and it was such a general letter (hello douchebags, fill in the blanks obvious) that you got put on the poll to be sacrificed the Apocalypto way!
Saw the trailer for clover blah-blah… fookin legal departments…. FREE is FUCKING FREE… and I work in film… Any independent film i’ve worked on screams for this type of publicity. Fucking corporate Hollywood.
Now on the subject of illegal recording… sorry assholes that do, but I make my living by working in film, and when I am asked to to take a pay cut to help the bottom line (not every film makes 107 mil in 4 days) it really pisses me off. I am a worker like everyone else so please respect.
Two fold stupidity, Having it taken down and they way they went about it, why shouldn’t Paramount want FREE advertising?
DAMMMM….
movie studios do not support illegal recordings of movies. obviously the person that recorded this trailer also recorded the transformers. you expect a studio to condone this behavior? when they want an official trailer out they will put one out of high quality. not that crap that was on youtube. i can’t believe how immature and irrational people are being about it. it’s common sense.
http://www.ethanhaaswasright.com/
this site is part of it apparently……
again paramount did not try to have any official stuff taken down…they have tried to have BOOTLEGGED material removed of whihc they have every right a sit was obtained illegally as film in a cinema with a handycam is illegal
Sorry, had to post again because I just noticed the title of this whole shebang “PARAMOUNT DOESN’T WANT PEOPLE TO SEE THEIR TRAILERS” – in this case, that statement is absolutely true. John tries to say it like it’s a saracastic thing, but that is indeed the case here.
Krintina, before you start calling people ignorant, try to understand what the studios are trying to achieve in this case. Because it’s not me who is appearing ignorant here. Paramount wants word of mouth buzz generated from people seeing it in theatres. THEATRES. Period. At this stage, that’s what they want. They don’t want every web site loudly proclaiming who the filmmaker is and what the movie is about blah blah blah. Try to think of it this way – ignore for a monent all the business aspects – imagine you had a killer gift picked out for a friend or family member. The surprise was going to be awesome. See where I’m going here? Your little brother – who loves being the one to spoil secrets because he loves the attention – spoils the surprise and ruins what could have been a really cool moment. And all the fun of the anticipation is gone. Would you enjoy that more or less than if the surprise could have gone down as you wanted it too?
Whoops – sorry, I think I should have been addressing Krintina. Sorry Darren.
Darren, of course the studios make use of the buzz sites like this generate – they have no choice because all of their hard work is going to get spoiled no matter what – but you can’t deny that the Harry Knowles and John’s of the world get confused as to why people are going to their sites. If it was just JOHN-NEWS. COM, I think his site traffic might be slightly reduced. Once I start seeing a site operator’s cartoon caricature on the banner or celebrity schmoozing shots, or when you start seeing these guys “befriended” by filmmakers, you can’t consider them objective anymore. Which is fine – they have every right to parlay their “scoop news” bit into something more. But as someone who works in the movie industry and loves making movies, I get a sick pit of bile in my stomach when I see all of these giuys clamouring over each other to ruin people’s hard work – just to get “noticed” as super-spies or whatever. Sad. Regardless, no matter who you agree with, in that post he just came off as BIG, HUGE BABY whinning about legal departments. “Why won’t they let me do whatever I want? Don’t they know who I am – MTV knows me!!” From what I can gather from the movie’s campaign, posting that link was detrimental to what they were trying to do. It was a different situation than simply trying to get publicity however they can get it. John clearly didn’t get that.
Well, I didn’t think it was that great a trailer. Actually, it was a standard “mostly boring but ends with a bait-and-switch” trailer. You sit there going “Bored, bored, bored, what is this, a romantic comedy? What’s going on? Do I care about these people? OMG, something exploded, what kind of movie is it! Fade to black?”
Sure I went “Huh, what is that?” but I didn’t really think it was that good or amazing and it didn’t even stick with me after I left. When my friend went to tell me about it the next day, and tell me why it didn’t have a title, I went “What? What trailer? Oh, that one!”
All that aside: the problem here isn’t that Paramount has a specific way they want to market the movie in mind. Maybe they do. The problem is actually movie studios completly underestimating the internet, and continuing not to understand it or use it to a proper advantage. I saw this great interview on Reelz Channel about how the creators of Spider-Man were actually ticked off at how much footage went out on the internet first, but their response was “Really, what are you going to do? Either we release it or somebody leaks it so I’d rather put it out myself.”
EXACTLY. They should have had the two brain cells it takes to spark the idea that the SECOND that trailer hit the theatre it would be on the internet, and been ready with their own website, hi-res version, and information nobody else had to drive people to their website.
The fact that they weren’t is their fault, and their problem. In this day and age, that’s just bad business.
In other words: sure, it’s their property and they can do what they want. That doesn’t mean they should. You know, exactly what John said in his post.
Paramount do want people to see their trailers….the problem is on the net right now is not the way paramount want you to see it…..what Paramount don’t want people seeing is a bootleg of their trailers..they have not released a trailer online yet and whent hey do they will want people to watch it…….. they are well within their rights to stop these bootlegged versions taken by guys who more than likely after filming this trailer filmed transformers and are now sending it out to the world as torrents…
i gotta agree wih fergus a bit here….I certainly understand johns point but what are they meant to do persoanlly call every website that has it up? fo course not…..lawyers handle this stuff for studios…..
I think paramount are mounting a campaign here and have something very specific in mind…..look how well they have managed to keep this film a secret. It great. I think its sad that paramount obviously have a specific idea and plan to do soemthing a but different here and already it has turned against them because “the net” wnat everything and they want it now. I mean the trailer played on the first night transformers played where I live but not on the second….totally on purpose and I missed it the first night but evewryone I know was talking about it……paramount are doing something here that they don’t want bootleggers to be part of…and fair enough….they will release a real version when they are good and ready and we have to wait for it. I know that is a crazy idea in this bullshit give it now now NOW impatient downloading stealing culture we live in but I love it……and I can’t wait to see what the next part is….
for now all that is out there is bootlegged bullshit by bootlegging dickheads…I am very much against bootlegging and illegal downloading etc etc it drives me crazy…until someone can give me a better excuse then “rockstars and directors etc etc are already rich so fuck em” I will be dead against it. that seems to be peoples only defence of bootlegging. I hate it when I hear john go on about how he hates studioss coming down on kids downloading…fuck them. would a shop come down on that same kid if he walked into a shop and shoplifted a dvd or a cd?? of course they would…it is the exact same thing. it is theft. plain and simple. rant over. if you steal something over the net then you run the risk of getting taken down just like any other thief. rant seriously over.
they have a site up now too http://www.1-18-08.com
they have got me sold……
Hmmmm, “good” to see, that moviebiz is as addicted to “warning letters” as the musicbiz is.
Who needs costumers?
Fergus clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
If you read the post, John isn’t ripping about paramount wanting the trailer taken down. Yes, he thinks it’s stupid, but he doesn’t rip them for it. The part (at least it seems to me) that he was ripped about was having a lawyer go after him for it.
As far as the ignorant statement of “I am so sick of people leaching of other people’s work to make names for themselves.” that was just stupid. Paramount and the studios USE sites like this to get buzz going. They need and want these sites.
I first hear about certain movies, and get excited about certain movies specifically because of sites like this. And Paramount and the other studios know it. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and to not recognize that is pretty ignorant.
The only things I can think of is that the trailer for Clover…I mean “Film X”, has a release date on it which will change or there is something in the triler that gives away a spoiler (it’s unlikely, only speculation)or they hate the film and it’ll land right to DVD (again, speculation). While it is possible that they only want the trailer shown in theatres with ‘Transformers’ at this time, I don’t think it will help or hurt the main feature anymore than the creepy music in the “Invasion” trailer will help or hurt Transformers.
It’s only a trailer regardless. It’s an interesting trailer, an innovative and gutsy idea. I don’t know if it will work as a film, but it will be different.
My excitement and curiousity factor has decreased by twenty percent.
It is an official trailer teaser from the studio. Not “leaked”- it’s in the theatres. I don’t understand the problem.
Hey, I wonder how the folks over at
I saw the trailer on YouTube and just don’t get the point or the hype about it. It’s nothing personal John, it’s just that it’s the job of their legal department to send those letters. I’m pretty sure they just input the URL of a bunch of website and it automaticly generates the take down notice.
Amen, Fergus.
You’ve made a film. What if you were trying to drum up a marketing strategy for your film? What if you decided that you didn’t want people to know the exact nature of your subject matter? And let’s just pretend for a moment that people would actually know who you are. Big leap. Maybe if you were trying to build some mystique around your Peace/War thing, you wouldn’t want some 2-bit movie “news” website clearly identifying the makers and splashing a link to a crap-quailty bootleg video. My God – you’re a filmmaker – can you not understand their position? You want CONTROL over how your work is delivered to the public, no? And who is suppossed to call you – Abrams? Who the hell do you think you are? This isn’t directly aimed at this website specifically, but I am so sick of people leaching of other people’s work to make names for themselves. All the movie “scoop” sites are like this – and then they complain when anyone rightly bats them down for it. Stop throwing tantrums.
As you should know by now John, Paramount doesn’t have a leash on it’s legal department. They just go around sending notices and taking down sites (like IESB) whenever they like.
I love it. Since the files are hosted by You Tube, isn’t this a little like arresting the little boy who points at the flasher in the park as an accessory? Is there ANY legal basis here at all to come after you?
“And to FinalJoe, “God damn them and their thoughts of keeping an exciting trailer a secret!” What the fuck does that mean? What good is an exciting trailer if no one sees it?”
They will see it. When they go to the cinema.
come on you guys, yer being too hard on the lawyers. i mean, they need things to do too (besides watching internet pr0n). they’re just average joes trying to get by, just like me and you.
i mean, being a professional asshole isn’t easy and it’s expensive getting blood from a stone!
seriously, this IP rights thing is just out of control!
It seems to me the really dumb — and, if I were running a website that got this letter, aggravating — part of Paramount’s letter is the bit that begins: “The specific URL from which this unauthorized copy is being distributed, displayed and reproduced is…”
Um, okay, themovieblog.com is certainly *displaying* the trailer… but *reproducing* it? Isn’t it *YouTube* that is doing that? If Paramount doesn’t like it, they can always tell YouTube to take the video down (as, indeed, it seems they have done). But are they really going to go after every fricken blog or website that has embedded the YouTube code?
Again I ask, *reproducing* it? If you want to download the video clip to your hard drive, as you can do now with YouTube and Google Video files, you have to go to the YouTube page for it. *That* is reproduction, and unless I’m forgetting something, you can’t do that from *here*!
They might just as well complain because somebody *links* to the YouTube page. Sheesh.
Was the trailer even hosted on TMB? If not then they poked at the wrong person…
Screw paramount. Not for taking their stupid little trailer down. That’s their business no matter how dumb it is. But for sicking legal departments on people just for showing your commercial. Bunch of stupid pricks.
Viddy, actually, if you paid attention, John started talking about the Transformers again because Paramount apologized to the movie blog for the incident and showed it was a accident. And John did stop talking about FF2 after that incident except to complain about the storm cloud and to give the review of the movie once it came out.
And I don’t want to get nit-picky, but the post doesn’t say John is going to “boycott” the movie, or ever talking about the movie again. It just says “no more talk about the trailer”.
And to FinalJoe, “God damn them and their thoughts of keeping an exciting trailer a secret!” What the fuck does that mean? What good is an exciting trailer if no one sees it?
John said they have the right to have it pulled, but I 100% agree with his that it’s stupid, and that they should have had the courtesy to just email him and ask him, rather than get a lawyer to do it. Very bush.
Come on now John. They didn’t even give us a title in that Piece of shit trailer, they are GREEDY. Who would want the general public to know about a movie?!?! Are you RETARDED??? ggeeeezzzz
Yeah God damn Paramount! God damn them for wanting to give audiences a surprise! God damn them and their thoughts of keeping an exciting trailer a secret! God damn you! You maniacs! Not showing the entire movie in the trailer! Only giving a tease!
This trailer pissed on every TRANSFORMERS trailer, btw.
“So fuck it. No more Cloverfield trailer talk. Don’t want to risk getting another letter from the old Legal department.”
Oh come on John. Remember last year when you said you would never talk about Transformers? This movie sounds too cool for you to just stop talking about it. You had a similiar experience with Fox and the Doom pictures earlier this year. YES, they are morons, but you know they are, don’t act so surprised now….It’s a shame though. That studios don’t fully realize the power of the internet sometimes.
I hate to play Devil’s Advocate here again, but there actually could be a very valid reason for why they wouldn’t want this trailer out on the net yet.
First off, although the “Cloverfield” trailer may not be the singular cause for why people are going to see Transformers, it could HELP draw more of a crowd, or help push people that are teetering on the edge of deciding to go or not. (Yes, believe it or not, some people are not 150% hyped to see Transformers.)
But regardless of whether the trailer draws people to the theatre itself, it has a certain sense of mystique at this point. It leaves people who see it going “What was that for? It looked pretty crazy.” And they tell their friends, and their friends say “Wow, that sounds pretty cool.”
And since my message would seem a little out of place with the others without at least SOME sarcasm, here it is. This is called a “marketing strategy.” Whether you agree with it or not, it is Paramount’s choice as to how they want to promote this movie at this point in time. In this case, buzz and hype get generated by the vagueness of the marketing campaign. That campaign does not work with a worldwide web release, especially of a crappy bootleg quality video of the trailer.
Will it appear on the web in good time? Of course. Will they be happy to whore out their film when their marketing campaign gets to that point in their strategy? Sure. And if people want to pout and take the stance of the “almighty consumer” to boycott the film because of this, I guess that’s their choice.
But Paramount does have a right to do it, and surprising as it may be, there could be a very valid reason for why they don’t want it out at this point in time.
Again, not trying to put anyone else here down, but you don’t seem to be giving the people at Paramount much credit. Every time a movie studio does something within rights and reason, everyone seems to assume they’re smarter than the studio and start blasting them for having a strategy that’s different then what they would do.
i say boycott the movie under general principal…then paramount will have to lay off one of their lawyers because they did not get the revenue to support their lawyers bill rate of $350.00 dollar per hour to write the brief…..
either way – the movie will probably suck ass anyways…..
Um yeah. So all that interest and curiosity I had about “cloverfield”. Yeah, gone.
It’s funny how easily something can get soured. Well done Paramount.
i have a feeling john and doug are gonna have a good rant about this on the next shoe
marks calender :)
John, rock ON with that righteous indignation, dude!!!
Great comment regarding the legal department vs just having someone from production contact you.
Freaking 800 pound gorillas…
Vic
Seems a bit ridiculous to me, then again this is Hollywood. I don’t fucking get why their so scared of the internet though. That’s all this is, don’t take i personally dude.
I don’t understand you people. You have no concept of how these things work. JJ Abrams and his brilliant “Cloverfield” trailer is a great example of Guerrilla Marketing. Thats why we can’t have it on the internet!
Obviously you were under some kind of mistaken impression that the trailer is for your pleasure. Paramount knows the truth…Guerrilla Marketing is obviously only for Gorillas.
And we all know…Gorillas don’t use YouTube…they use Google Video.
What is Paramount’s problem? They’ve already released it publicly in the theaters. It’s not giving away any secrets. It’s a paid advertisement that’s getting free play!
And I agree with you John. I don’t care how “standard” it is, having a legal department sending you the note is just rude.
They were probably just upset becase it was a bootleg copy of the trailer, filmed out in the audience with crappy visuals and sound. What would have made sense is for them to request you take that version down and say “Here is the hi-res official Quick Time version. Post this instead.” Anytime a trailer can be seen in the theater, these companies need to post them online…I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want that…
They want you to go see it at Transformers. Because if you see it somewhere else you won’t see Transformers because the only reason Transformers made 35 Million world wide on July 3 was to see the Cloverfield trailer. In fact, the theaters half emptied after that 1 minute thrill ride.
And now that John has put the trailer up on the net, you wait and see, Transformers is gonna bomb. I hope they enjoyed their 35 million opening day because they’ll be lucky to make over 45 million total worldwide now that Cloverfield is all over the net.
I cry for Optimus Prime.
Deja-vu.
Well John, they’ve been doing that all over the web, taking the links down. I don’t get it. You DON’T want people talking about your movie? I could understand a bit if this was leaked footage or giving away spoilers, but it’s a fucking TRAILER!!!! THEY DON’T WANT PEOPLE TO SEE THE ADVERTISEMENT TO THEIR OWN FILM??????? WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!