A tale of two trailers

Potential Spoiler Alert.

You may remember seeing trailers for Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" last summer, advertising its October release. Despite its prestigious pedigree and an Oscar field with room for ten best-picture nominees, Paramount Pictures decided to push the creepy Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle to Feb. 19, which looks like a smart move now that its opening weekend's box office receipts have been counted. ($41 million, according to Box Office Mojo.)

Hollywood vulture Nikki Finke first reported the shifting release date, and Paramount explained that DiCaprio would not have been available to promote the film overseas, and that the studio couldn't afford to mount an awards campaign for a movie that certainly deserved one. They also didn't want "Shutter Island" to get lost amid the usual crop of crappy October releases that inexplicably make money; the mini-phenomenon of "Paranormal Activity" probably would have buried Marty and Leo at the box office.

But I don't think Paramount would ever admit what I think was another big reason for the delay: That first trailer just plain gave away too much.

Let's compare, shall we?

June 2009 trailer

December 2009 trailer

Gone from the second theatrical trailer were any shots of Patricia Clarkson's character, and any mention of "the 67th patient." You watch that first trailer, and you immediately know who Patient 67 is.

The other strange thing about that first trailer is the slip of paper Leo finds in Rachel Solando's cell. It simply reads, "WHO IS 67?" In the actual film, it is preceded by another line: "THE LAW OF 4." Was this digitally erased from the first trailer to keep the audience focused on Patient 67? Clearly. But that makes the first trailer that much worse; it's almost as if they consciously tried to spoil the ending. (Of course, one could successfully argue that the "law of 4" should have been dropped from the movie as well; it never figures into the plot, and it is barely explained in the film's climactic scene in the lighthouse.)

Spoiled or not, "Shutter Island" was a solid entry from the Scorsese camp, an artful riff on B-movie material that puts "Cape Fear" to shame. Teddy's colorful, creepy flashbacks and dream sequences are reason enough to see it on the big screen -- as if a cast containing DiCaprio, Clarkson, Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow and Jackie Earle Haley wasn't providing that already. Williams is particularly impressive in a smallish role that becomes meatier and meatier as the film reaches the finish line. With an October release, Williams might have been in the conversation for the best supporting actress Oscar. (And the film itself definitely would have gotten a truckload of nominations. I guess it still can, provided Paramount doesn't have a better horse to back come December.)

"Shutter Island" is further proof that a delayed release does not spell doom for a movie. (As if we needed more after "Star Trek," "Half-Blood Prince" and ... oh yeah, "Titanic.") Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Joe Johnston's "The Wolfman," which was mired in problems from Day One and turned out to be a cheesy, expensive dud.

Paramount's marketing shift, however, should serve as an important lesson for the rest of the industry: STOP SHOWING US EVERYTHING IN THE TRAILERS. Thanks to the Internet, most movie fans already know too much when they walk up to the box office; we don't need to see too much on top of it.