One Of Clint Eastwood's Best Movies Was Also One Of The First To Release A Trailer Online

These days, online marketing is a standard part of a movie's promotional campaign. Back in 1993, however, the internet had yet to subsume our culture, and studios were still figuring out how to make the best of this emerging tech. One of the first examples came shortly after the internet itself was made available to the public. On April 30, 1993, the World Wide Web launched, giving users access to a network of information that would eventually become the sprawling mediascape we know today. In its early stages, though, it was comparatively barren terrain, and it was into this terrain that Clint Eastwood soon ventured, like he had so many dusty Old West towns before.

Except, this time, Eastwood did so as an embittered U.S. government agent rather than a traditional gunslinger, as his Bill Clinton-approved 1993 political thriller "In the Line of Fire" became one of the first movies ever to release its trailer online. In '93, Variety reported on how studios were "taking advantage of the interactive age" by "trying to reach moviegoers through the personal computer." Can you imagine? It seems rather quaint when viewed from the perspective of our nightmare future in which corporations have submerged our attention spans in a sickly pool of social media sludge. But back in the early '90s, the dream of an interconnected future that would unite the world was very much alive, and it was amid this tech optimism that Eastwood's action thriller first introduced itself to audiences.

"In the Line of Fire" is directed by Wolfgang Petersen of "Das Boot," "The Never Ending Story," and "Air Force One" fame. Clint Eastwood plays Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, who formed part of the detail assigned to President John F. Kennedy on the day of his assassination. The events of that fateful day drove Horrigan to a lonely life of alcoholism and self-pity. But when he discovers a plot by an ex-CIA assassin (John Malkovich) to kill the current U.S. president, he finds purpose in trying to thwart the threat and make amends for his past failures.

"In the Line of Fire" turned out to be Eastwood's last action movie, and he went out with a bang, considering the film maintains a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score. Petersen's box office hit was originally supposed to star Tom Selleck, but Eastwood was just the perfect choice for the lead role. The fact that he had several decades of action movie bonafides even lent an authenticity to Horrigan's burnt out Secret Service agent (who, in his "I don't do that any more" defeatism, vaguely recalled Eastwood's remorseful ex-gun slinger William Munny in 1992's "Unforgiven").

Critics seemed to enjoy his efforts. Roger Ebert described the film as a "smart, tense, well-made thriller" and "Eastwood's best in the genre since 'Tightrope.'" The New York Times' Vincent Canby similarly thought it was "the most uproariously entertaining movie of the summer so far," and Marjorie Baumgarten of the Austin Chronicle concurred, describing the film as "a terrific action movie with good performances and a smart script." At the time of writing, "In the Line of Fire" is the seventh highest-rated Eastwood project on Rotten Tomatoes, right behind "Unforgiven."

"In the Line of Fire" wasn't just one heck of a farewell to Clint Eastwood's action star era, it had what was, at the time, a genuinely innovative marketing strategy. As Variety reported back in 1993, subscribers to the then-burgeoning America On-Line service "dialed into AOL with their computer modems, typed Hollywood On Line, and then retrieved the data," which consisted of a trailer for the film as well as "production notes, stills, and background material on the stars" which they could "download to their hard drives or disks." According to the report, a full 170 people downloaded the film's trailer in the first week of its availability — numbers that seem sort of cute when you consider that, in 2026, the "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" trailer made Hollywood history by racking up 718.6 million views in 24 hours.

Companies allowing anyone to actually download anything seems unbelievable at a time when everything requires a subscription, and nobody is allowed to own anything (not to mention the fact that Apple and similar services can literally delete your digital movies whenever they want). In 1993, however, Columbia was willing to hand over the goods, much to the delight of a Los Angeles-based consultant quoted in Variety's piece. "I'd only participated in forums with text," she explained. "To see graphics and full-motion images was nice. It's a very good application of interactive marketing."

In subsequent years, we saw that very interactive marketing become increasingly complex and innovative, with 2008's "The Dark Knight" being a particularly memorable turning point for online promotion. Today, we have films such as "Obsession" allowing folks to experience the horror movie's nightmarish premise for real, but as with so many things cinema-related, it all started with Clint Eastwood.