I saw I Am Legend a few weeks back. I didn't really enjoy it that much, but I found some of it entertaining. I like the post-Apocalyptic genre, so that alone made it interesting to me.
But, what I was most dismayed with were the trailers. Every single movie, save for The Dark Knight --which you better not let me catch you saying a bad thing about-- looked done. I don't mean "done" in that it was ready for theaters. I mean done as in, "That's been done before."
I barely even recall which movies I saw trailers for, but I distinctly remember thinking, "Wow, not one of these is original. And, to make things worse, none of them look good." I suddenly felt so dismayed with the film industry, so disgusted with it and wanting to distance myself from it. Yet, at the same time, I felt an overwhelming need to get out there, to write like mad, and to be a part of a film that audiences will see a trailer for and think, not only, "Damn, that looks sweet," but also, "I haven't seen that before."
We talk about telling stories that we just have to tell, stories that almost write or tell themselves. And yes, I would feel as if I were being suffocated if I couldn't or didn't write my ideas out, if I didn't put them on the page. But shouldn't making movies be about something more? Don't we want to excite? To entertain with creativity and surprises? To be new?
After seeing the trailers before Sweeney Todd (worse trailers than before I Am Legend), I'm not so sure that's the case. I hope I'm wrong.
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