As a senior executive at a boutique film trailer supply company, I get asked this question at least once a quarter: “How did we go from ads that played after movies to the make-or-break marketing juggernaut every studio spends millions on today?” The answer isn’t just a timeline—it’s a story of adaptation, misjudgment, and a tiny group of industry pioneers who saw a gap no one else did. Let’s break it down, and along the way, I’ll pull back the curtain on how our team leverages this messy, fascinating history to deliver trailers that turn casual viewers into ticket buyers. Trailers
First, let’s set the record straight: trailers did not start before movies. That sounds counterintuitive, right? The whole point of a trailer is to lead you to a film. But let’s jump back to 1913, the dawn of silent film’s golden age. Back then, movie screenings wrapped with a stack of short “short films” and newsreels to fill time, not to promote anything else. Adolph Zukor, the founder of Famous Players–Lasky (the precursor to Paramount), had a bright idea to sell ad space for consumer products in those interstitials. Those early ad spots didn’t promote films—they sold soap, cereal, and early radios.
The first film trailer as we know it? It premiered on November 1, 1913, at the Astor Theatre in New York, right before a screening of the Broadway melodrama The Adventures of Kathlyn. The genius behind it was Herbert Yates, a low-level theater manager who was sick of leaving money on the table with unclaimed showtime slots. Instead of selling ad space for products, Yates cut together two minutes of highlights from The Adventures of Kathlyn—which was actually a serial playing at a neighboring theater—and played it after the main feature. The reaction was immediate: theatergoers left the screening buzzing about the next Kathlyn episode. Ticket sales for the serial spiked that week, and studios quickly took notice. For the first 10 years of its existence, the trailer was a post-show afterthought—hence the name, short for “trailer” (something that trails the main attraction).
But here’s the misjudgment that almost killed the trailer: in the 1920s, theater owners moved trailers to the front of screenings. It was a standard practice across the industry by 1927, but audiences reacted with outrage. Think about it: you’d pay a nickel to see a Buster Keaton comedy, sit through a newsreel, and then get 10 minutes of ads for other films before the feature even started. People left theaters complaining that the trailers were a nuisance, and studios started pulling back on their investment. By the end of the 1920s, trailers were barely 90 seconds long, and only played in small, independent theaters—major studios wrote them off as a waste of marketing budget.
Then came the Great Depression, and a tiny shift that turned the tide. In 1935, a guy named Sid Shapiro, a marketing executive at Warner Bros., had a weird idea. The big studios were struggling to fill seats; ticket sales had dropped 50% from 1929 peaks, and radio was eating into their audience. Shapiro was tasked with selling the public on Warner Bros.’ slate of B-movies—low-budget, fast-paced features made for dime-a-dozen ticket buyers. Instead of making a dry, plot-driven clip reel for High Sierra, a hardboiled gangster film starring Humphrey Bogart, Shapiro decided to cut together 3 minutes of the most tense, emotional, and shocking moments: Bogart’s first gun draw, the scene where he begs a nurse for help, the final showdown in the mountains. He added a punchy, rhythmic score and a voiceover from a young announcer named Don LaFontaine (yes, that Don LaFontaine—he got his start as a trailer announcer before In a World… made him famous) to hype the film.
That trailer didn’t play after a feature, or before a film. It played before newsreels in small-town theaters, where people showed up for the latest World War II updates and stayed for whatever was next. High Sierra opened to record ticket sales, and suddenly every studio wanted a piece of Shapiro’s formula. By 1939, trailers were the primary marketing tool for any film looking to break even. This is the era that birthed the trailer as we think of it: 2 to 3 minutes, focused on emotional hook rather than plot, designed to stop you mid-conversation on your way into the theater.
The 1950s brought another seismic shift: television. By 1955, 75% of American homes had a TV, and studios were panicking that people would stop going to the movies entirely. The trailer responded by evolving to sell the “event” of going to a theater. Trailers stopped just showing clips; they showed widescreen footage, color (when most TV was still black and white), and crowd reaction shots. The 1959 trailer for Ben-Hur didn’t just show chariot races—it showed 10,000 extras, the scale of the production, and one line of voiceover: “The greatest story ever told.” It played on TV, in theaters, and in shopping malls, and it turned Ben-Hur into the highest-grossing film of all time at that point. Trailers had moved from post-show afterthoughts to omnipresent marketing that reached audiences wherever they were.
Fast forward to the 1970s and 80s, and the trailer became an art form. Studios started hiring specialized teams (ahead of companies like ours) to cut trailers, not just as marketing, but as standalone creative work. The 1975 trailer for Jaws is a perfect example: it gave nothing away, just that iconic score, the glimpses of the shark, and the line “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” It didn’t reveal the plot— it built tension, and people left the trailer talking about the shark, even if they hadn’t seen the film. By the 1980s, the summer blockbuster was born, and its signature was a 2 and a half minute trailer that played in every theater, on every TV, and on every home video tape (yes, when VHS became popular, people would fast-forward to the previews before a rented movie, and studios knew that too).
The biggest shift of all came in the 2000s, with the rise of the internet. By 2005, YouTube had launched, and studios started releasing trailers online weeks before they hit theaters. The 2008 trailer for The Dark Knight was one of the first to go viral online; it got 20 million views in its first month, and became a cultural event. Suddenly, trailers weren’t just for people going to the movies—they were for anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world. That’s when our company was founded, right at the crossroads of traditional theatrical marketing and digital growth.
Here’s what that means for us today: as a trailer supplier, we don’t just cut clips. We draw on 110 years of this history to create trailers that work across every platform. For theatrical releases, we lean into the history of the 1930s and 50s: we build for the big screen, where audiences are watching in a dark room, so the hook has to hit in the first 10 seconds. For digital releases, we adapt to the short attention span of social media, where a trailer has to hook a viewer scrolling through TikTok or Instagram Reels in 3 seconds flat. We also know the history of missteps: we never put trailers right before the opening credits (that still drives older audiences crazy), and we never give away the entire plot (a mistake studios made in the 1920s that almost killed the industry).
Today, trailers are still the first impression of a film. A 2022 study by the Motion Picture Association found that 78% of moviegoers decide which films to see in theaters based on a trailer they saw online or in a theater. That number doesn’t surprise us—after 100 years of evolution, the trailer is still the most powerful tool in a studio’s marketing kit. It’s the line between a film that makes $10 million and a film that makes $100 million, and that’s why we work so hard to deliver trailers that respect that history, but push the boundaries of what a trailer can be.
Whether you’re a studio launching a indie drama, a summer blockbuster, or a global streaming release, we bring that 100 years of trailer history to every project. We know what works, and what doesn’t, because we’ve lived through the evolution—from post-show afterthoughts to viral digital sensations. If you’re looking for a trailer partner that understands both the art and science of this medium, we’re here to help. We work with teams of writers, editors, and sound designers who specialize in crafting trailers that resonate with audiences, no matter the platform. Reach out to our team to discuss your upcoming project and how we can help turn your film into a must-see event.
Tanker References:
- Balio, Tino. The American Film Industry. University of Wisconsin Press, 1976.
- Gomery, Douglas. The Hollywood Studio System. British Film Institute, 2005.
- Smoodin, Eric. Designing Movie Trailers: The Business of Promotion in Hollywood. University of California Press, 2018.
- Motion Picture Association. 2022 Theatrical Audience Research Report. MPA, 2022.
- Cook, David A. Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970-1979. University of California Press, 2000.
Shandong Huayuanda Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
As one of the most experienced trailers manufacturers and suppliers in China, our products have good reputation in the market. We warmly welcome you to buy high quality trailers at low price from our factory. If you have any enquiry about cooperation, please feel free to email us.
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