Tag Archives: Jon Hamm

I hope the people who make movie trailers actually go to the theater and watch the audience reaction.

It can be a real eye opener.

Case in point:  I went to “Inception” last night — what a wild ride that was — and saw two new trailers before the show:  one for “The Town,” one for “Devil.”

“The Town” stars Ben Affleck, Blake Lively, Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner.  Set in Boston, it tells the story of a group of bank robbers, a bank manager they get involved with and the FBI agent who tries to take them down.  The trailer said it was from “the director of ‘Gone Baby Gone.’”

“Devil” puts a group of apparently random people in a high-rise elevator and stalls it.  Then all hell breaks loose.  There are no real name stars in the film; the trailer just touts it as being “from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan.”

Two interesting choices.

The first trailer did not specifically name Affleck as its director.  Did they suspect there might be negative connotations?  Some holdover from his earlier work in “Gigli” or “Jersey Girls?”

The second — which I think had the audience until this point — elicited groans and laughter when they threw M. Night Shyamalan’s name into the mix.  The movie appeared to lose all credibility with those three little words.

So, if anyone is listening — I think a teeny edit to the “Devil” trailer could make a big difference at the box office.

And M. Night — the slogan for “Devil” is “bad things happen for a reason.”

Try to keep that in mind…okay?