A teaser trailer, also shortened to teaser, is a short
trailer and a form of teaser campaign advertising that focuses on film and television programming. It is a videography pre-release film or television show advertisement. Short in length, teaser trailers contain a little material from the advertised content to be released.
Frequently, they contain hinted,
cryptic, curiosity-inducing messages. Methods of this nature are designed to pique audience interest and anticipation, as well as increase the hype of the advertised content before release of its trailer. The length of a teaser trailer is usually only around 20–30 seconds, noticeably shorter than the 2014
Cinema United
Cinema United, formerly known as the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), is an American trade organization whose members are the owners of movie theaters. Most of the operators of worldwide major theater chains are members, as are ...
guideline of two minutes for standard trailers. It is generally created during the shooting of the film or program and released before the completion of shooting.
For films
A teaser trailer is a short video segment related to an upcoming film, television program, video game, or similar, that is usually released long in advance of the product, so as to "tease" the audience; an early example of the teaser trailer was the one for the 1978 ''
Superman
Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...
'' film by
Richard Donner
Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg; April 24, 1930 – July 5, 2021) was an American film director, producer and actor. Described as "one of Hollywood's most reliable makers of action blockbusters", Donner directed some of the mo ...
, which was designed to re-invigorate interest on the part of potential movie-goers, for a film whose release had been delayed.
Film teasers are usually made for big-budget and popularly themed movies. Their purpose is less to tell the audience about a movie's content than simply to let them know that the movie is coming up in the near future, and to add to the hype of the upcoming release.
Teaser trailers are often made while the film is still in production or being edited, and as a result they may feature scenes or alternate versions of scenes that are not in the finished film.
Often they contain no dialogue and some — notably
Pixar
Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...
films — have scenes made for use in the trailer only.
Some teaser trailers show a quick montage of scenes from the film. The average length of a teaser is less than a minute.

Later examples of major motion picture events that used teaser trailers to gain hype are ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...
'' trilogy, the ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...
'' prequels, and the ''
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a superhero in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appearance, first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in ...
'' films. ''
The Da Vinci Code
''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is “the best-selling American novel of all time.”
Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon—the first was his 2000 novel '' Angels & Demons''� ...
'' teaser trailer was released even before a single frame of the movie had been shot. ''
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the sixth and penultimate novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series, and takes place during Harry Potter's sixth year at the wizard scho ...
''s teaser debuted three months before its intended release date, but its delay to July 15, 2009, expanded the gap to a year.
When the first teaser for ''
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' was attached to the films ''
The Siege'', ''
A Bug's Life
''A Bug's Life'' (stylized in all lowercase) is a 1998 American animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter from a screenplay written by Andrew Stanton, Donald McEnery, and Bob Shaw, and a story conceived by Lasseter, Stanton, and Joe Ran ...
'' and ''
Meet Joe Black
''Meet Joe Black'' is a 1998 American romantic fantasy drama film directed and produced by Martin Brest, starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Claire Forlani. Celebrating his 65th birthday, businessman and devoted family man Bill Parrish is ...
'', it was reported that many people had paid for admission to the film just to watch the trailer and subsequently walked out after the trailer had been screened. Similarly, teasers for ''
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones'' and ''
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith'' were shown before the Pixar films ''
Monsters, Inc.'' and ''
The Incredibles
''The Incredibles'' is a 2004 American animated superhero film written and directed by Brad Bird. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures, the film stars the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Spencer ...
'', respectively. The teaser trailer for ''
Cloverfield
''Cloverfield'' is a 2008 American Found footage (film technique), found footage monster movie, monster horror film directed by Matt Reeves and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller (in his film debut), Mic ...
'' was first publicly shown attached to the film ''
Transformers
''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two Extraterrestrials in fiction, alien robot fac ...
''; at that point, nothing about the former was known, and the one-and-a-half-minute teaser did not include the movie title; only the producer's name,
J. J. Abrams, and a release date, 1.18.08, were shown. The teaser trailer for another film directed by Abrams, ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
'', was attached to ''Cloverfield'' itself, depicting the starship
USS ''Enterprise'' being constructed on Earth, and again showing no title, instead just showing the Starfleet Insignia; the ''Star Trek'' teaser trailer originally announced the release date as Christmas 2008, but the movie was eventually delayed to May 8, 2009, making the wait between the teaser trailer and the movie itself 16 months. Other teasers also do not explicitly display the film's title, but reveal it in the URL for the website.
Teasers often create hype in media to such extent that they get leaked. ''
Avengers: Infinity War'', ''
2.0'' and ''
KGF: Chapter 2'' prove to be such examples. The teaser (the director's version) of ''2.0'' was released weeks before it was officially released on YouTube.
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
releases of movies will usually contain both their teaser and theatrical trailers as special features. One exception to this rule is ''
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a superhero in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appearance, first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in ...
'', whose teaser trailer featured an unrelated plot of bank robbers escaping in a helicopter, getting caught from behind and propelled backward into what at first appears to be a net, then is shown to be a gigantic spider web spun between the two towers at the
World Trade Center.
This teaser was pulled from theaters following the
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, but it can be viewed on YouTube.
References
{{Reflist
Film advertising material
Articles containing video clips