Late last month, a teaser trailer appeared briefly online for July’s The X Files 2 and today another CAM bootleg has surfaced over at XFilesNews, this time for a full length trailer (embedded below). While I think the bootleg teaser trailer, which is now back up at YouTube here, is more intriguing, I’m left wondering about both in terms of smart marketing. The new trailer is said to be attached to May’s Iron Man. Keep in mind that an entire decade has passed since Agents Mulder and Scully were on the big screen, and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, while both look great, haven’t had a major movie or TV hit since.
Neither of these trailers has a real money shot or a big scare to place the sequel in the realm of this summer’s diverse big guns like The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder or Pineapple Express. Furthermore, both trailers use a lot of military, ice and snow imagery that automatically brings to mind the Antarctica shots from the original film’s promotions. That film turned off general audiences and performed below expectations because it chose to focus on the TV show’s confusing, Lost-esque “mythology.”
The sequel will be a “stand alone” film, but that’s not clear at all underneath the characteristically ambiguous messages and played-up mystery in these trailers. The marketing department doesn’t have to outright state “This Time, No Alien Stuff…It’s Scarier” but, umm, it’s not a bad idea. Such a message can be easily communicated without spoiling the film, so why not go for it? There’s a lot at stake for Chris Carter’s franchise, and in a summer lacking scares (Midnight Meat Train seems to have gotten the boot), that’s the way to go if he wants a hit. I’m all for a straight-up quality mystery thriller to escape the heat, but the season’s event film competition is typically brutal, and that was clear back in 1998.
Discuss: Which trailer is more effective? If you’re not interested in The X Files sequel, what would you need to see to change that? Is seeing Xzibit’s face in the new trailer scarier than any conspiracy or monster mash in the series?
March 27th, 2008 at 10:07 am
David has had “Californication” which I think is a great show. Gillian has been off doing independent films and what not. I think they’re going to be OK. It’s going to be nice to have this team back together bringing back memories. I just hope that they still have the same mindsets as before Mulder and Scully started making out and stuff.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am
@ Matthew
Yes, I’ve seen Californication, but its audience is small compared to a show on a major network, and it has less mainstream buzz than similar shows like Weeds, Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Yawn….If it gets good reviews I’ll watch it.
I used to like the X-Files when they were more like Pulp Horror comic episodes. Each one viewed seperately would stand alone and were kind of cool to watch. But then they started withh that Alien Abduction storyline and it just got super confusing and boring. Then that spilled right into the movie, and I was like whatever. Left and never really looked back…
This teaser trailer SUCKED
March 27th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Please tell me that wasn’t Xzibit in the trailer?
March 27th, 2008 at 11:11 am
This was most likely shot at PaleyFest last night when they had the panel. They played the trailer twice because of the excitement it generated. Most of the fans seemed to be pissed that the stars didn’t come out, but they weren’t expected anyway.
Seems like a solid trailer, and i’ve missed the haunting opening theme. Should be a decent movie at the very least.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
The X-Files was the greatest TV show of the 90s. It went downhill somewhat with season 7-9 (although I thought season 8 was actually really good, even when Mulder wasn’t on the show).
The first teaser was great in that it felt intense and looked scary, although it didn’t tell us anything about the story. I think trailers should say something about the plot without spoiling things. This new trailer is almost no different from the first teaser, but it’s nice to see some dialog between Mulder and Scully. However, once again we know nothing about the plot.
Anyhow, this was a great TV show, and even in it’s weaker years it was still better than anything else on TV at the time. Seriously, were any other TV shows nearly as memorable as X-Files?
March 27th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Although this movie is supposed to be a stand alone, I don’t know how they will be able to avoid bringing in the mythology aspect. It saturates the whole story. For example, they have a baby who can MOVE THINGS WITH ITS MIND. Are they going to attempt to explain that? Is the child not going to be in the movie? I’m very curious to see how they handle this.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Umm what competition are you talking about? Hellboy 2? FLOP
Journey to center of earth - flop
Pineapple express comes out later on and won’t do as well as knocked up or superbad.
The only movie in july that will affect it is batman movie. Meet dave could go either way at boxoffice.
X-files 2 will do just fine. People who like good and mystery solving movies will go watch it. I mean budget is like 30-35 million so it will end up doing 55-65 million domestically which is solid.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
“Although this movie is supposed to be a stand alone, I don’t know how they will be able to avoid bringing in the mythology aspect. It saturates the whole story. For example, they have a baby who can MOVE THINGS WITH ITS MIND. Are they going to attempt to explain that? Is the child not going to be in the movie? I’m very curious to see how they handle this.”
I think that they will somehow incorporate some things from the series into the film, and maybe even some mythology. However, since she gave the baby away in Season 9, I think they’ll just not discuss it on screen in the film. Afterall, it is supposed to be six years later, so I don’t think they would talk about it much. My guess is that they would be trying to not discuss it and forget about the baby since she wants to have it as far away from her and Mulder and any danger.
Saying that, because it’s a stand alone movie we cannot expect them to tie much in from the series.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I found this while browsin’ through the IMDb X-Files boards… it’s the X-Files teaser poster…
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2038/2366679661_ba663a5c99_o.jpg
March 28th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Wow it’s been a while, the ending was pretty bad as well. If I remember right it ended with some weirdness at a remote cave in the desert?