Why is the trailer for Anchorman different from the movie?

July 23, 2004 10:35 AM

TrailerFilter: So I watched Anchorman the other night. Last night, at a different film, I saw the Anchorman trailer. In it, lots of things exciting things happen that don't appear in the film - Hero takes a bullet for Heroine, they have sex on the boss's desk, he tells her that he wants to be King Of Austria and that she sounds like a mental person. What's going on there then?
posted by bonaldi to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

I believe different editors do the trailers versus the actual films--I heard on NPR awhile back that there are companies that specialize just in trailer editing.

I've seen this happen in other movies, too, but I definitely noticed it in Anchorman as well. The trailers are probably cut and approved before the final edit cut is approved, hence the discrepancy.
posted by gramcracker at 10:47 AM on July 23, 2004

I think a) the trailers are made before the final cut of the movie, so sometimes footage that is in the trailer is removed from the film and b) Sometimes they don't have enough funny material (at least funny material that can be explained in the two second clip put in the trailer) in the film so they add extra stuff to the trailer.
posted by bondcliff at 10:49 AM on July 23, 2004

Dunno about this one, but the original trailer for This is Spinal Tap was documentary style footage of a fictional Norwegian cheese festival. Absolutely zero scenes from the actual film. If this trailer was radically different from the film, maybe it's a bit of a practical joke?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:58 AM on July 23, 2004

What they said, and to elaborate on bondcliff's b): it's not just a matter of finding that the film doesn't have self-explanatory bits suitable for the trailer after the fact -- sometimes they explicitly shoot scenes for the trailer that they never intend to put in the film.

Trailer = commercial; don't expect a trailer's producers to be any more scrupulous about avoiding misrepresenting its product than any other commercial.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:59 AM on July 23, 2004

Response by poster: That was quick! And plausible too ... deceived by advertising once again (albeit retrospectively). Someone should tell the world it's all lies, lies, lies.

Thanks guys.
posted by bonaldi at 11:03 AM on July 23, 2004

Weird- I thought I posted a response.

They shot tons of extra footage for the film. The rumor is that they will use the extra footage to create a second film for the DVD!
posted by dogwelder at 11:11 AM on July 23, 2004

My best friend from highschool's brother in law is Dave Koechner, and *she* said that *he* said they cut a lot of the funniest stuff from the movie, because it just didn't fit in the final plotline. Bummer.
posted by gramcracker at 11:44 AM on July 23, 2004

Response by poster: that makes sense too, gramcracker, because the stuff in the trailer *would* have ruined the plotline had it been in - if he'd revealed earlier his opposition to her etc.
posted by bonaldi at 11:48 AM on July 23, 2004

> Dunno about this one, but the original trailer for This is Spinal Tap was
> documentary style footage of a fictional Norwegian cheese festival.

OK, I want to see the director's cut.
posted by jfuller at 12:41 PM on July 23, 2004

Dogwelder is right, they shot so much stuff that they could have released two movies, most of the stuff in the trailer that didn't appear in the movie will appear on a dvd release of the movie or by itself later on.

Most of the time it is because of the way editors for studios decide to cut trailers. Most trailers are done by outside companies and not by the director at all.

And Skallas, that scene was in the movie.
posted by Derek at 6:16 PM on July 23, 2004

The scene I remember didn't include a slice of pizza, but pizza boxes. It was right in the beginning. What gives?

It was right after the pizza boxes. The guy manages to get one slice out, Spiderman picks up the stack of boxes. Just before he takes a bite, the web shoots out and pulls it away from his mouth. That scene did run through pretty quickly, and I believe the next cut was to the interior of the building when he's in the janitor's closet.
posted by shinynewnick at 10:17 PM on July 23, 2004

Another possibility for dialogue difference is that Will Ferrell improvs a lot (if not entirely; was there a script?). Different takes are likely to have different dialogue.
posted by ODiV at 11:32 AM on July 24, 2004