Among big-budget comic book and action films, trailers for newest installments of the Avengers, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park franchises are resonating most with Americans.
With several multi-million dollar comic book and action movies set to be released over the next eight months, American adults have indicated the three blockbusters that are most likely to set theaters alight are Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World, according to YouGov. Respectively, 32%, 33% and 28% plan to see each movie at a theater.
Furthermore, after being shown a trailer for several upcoming releases* and asked whether the trailer increased their interest in seeing that movie, the trailer for Star Wars performed best with respondents (65%), followed by Avengers (64%), especially among those age 35-54 (72% for both). In contrast, fewer than half (42%) felt that the trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road made them want to see the movie more, including only 33% of women. Mad Max (17%) also joined Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (13%) and Hitman:Agent 47 (10%) as being the only films with more than 10% of respondents expressing less interest in seeing the movie after reviewing the trailer.
It should be noted that despite an increase in the number of trailers and ‘sneak peek’ clips studios are running to promote their big-budget movies, nearly 40% of respondents expressed no interest in watching any of the eight comic book / actions films named in the survey, which correlates to the 44% of respondents who are not interested in comic book movies at all.
Generally speaking, respondents were in agreement that the trailers they were shown struck a good balance of building interest and intrigue, although 28% of people age 18-34 felt that the trailer for Jurassic World revealed too much.
When asked in general terms about the effectiveness of trailers, more than 60% of adults say that they are more likely to want to see a movie based on its trailer. However, the type of trailer they prefer differs significantly, with 63% preferring the traditional trailer compared to 37% preferring a five-minute “sneak peek” clip that’s taken directly from the film. The lone outlier here is black Americans, who prefer the ‘sneak peek’ by a 53-47 margin. 
Additionally, while a majority of Americans have watched a trailer online (58%), young people are far more likely to do so than Americans over 55 years of age (71% vs. 44%).
Finally, although 52% of adults claim that they like watching trailers before the start of a movie in the theaters, the number of people who actually see the trailer in the theater is somewhat minimal, given that 83% of adults more often watch movies at home, including 52% who watch via a streaming service – where trailers are less prevalent. Watching movies at home via a streaming service – i.e. Netflix or Hulu – is particularly popular among young people (69%).
*Survey respondents were given the option to view the trailers of the following films, which were selected at random: Avengers: Age of Ultron (219 respondents viewed), Ant-Man (206),Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (216), Fantastic Four (202), Hitman: Agent 47 (205), Jurassic World (207), Mad Max: Fury Road (223), Terminator Genisys (201), and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (199).
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1,100 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between April 27-28, 2015, prior to the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+).
