Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Harmonia (A) on January 30, 2005 at 19:55:34

In Reply to: How can this be? posted by rico on January 3, 2005 at 10:57:58:

It's very common to use music from other films for movie previews.

There are notable excpetions, and although a distributor, studio or director will occassionally supervise a movie trailer, typically the job is handed to a Hollywood production company that specializes in them. (This includes most of the trailers you see at your local multiplex. Could be that's why so many of the tend to be similar.)

As TA noted below, a film's composer often hasn't finished the score before a trailer is produced, maybe not even even begun it in fact if the film is still being tweaked. (The first trailers, called teasers, come out months before a movie is released). Film composers have notoriously short times frames in which to score a movie. Movies still in post-production will often preview to producers and key studio personnel (even to test audiences) with temp tracks as well. The earlier a teaser trailer, the more likely it will have another film's music. It's more common for a movie's final trailer to have original music

Sometimes certain movie soundtracks get used a lot for trailers. Miramax got terrific mileage out of the score to Restoration, and the Gladiator theme turned up frequently for a while.