Marvel fans and execs alike are hoping that Avengers: Doomsday will revive the aging franchise and bring this ambitious cinematic universe back to its former glory. Now, scooper @Cryptic4KQual is reporting something shocking: our first look at this upcoming superhero ensemble will be a short teaser that’s only a little over a minute long.
That would make this the shortest first trailer for an Avengers movie in Marvel history, and this abbreviated runtime reveals just how deeply the studio is worried about superhero fatigue among general moviegoers.
The Shortest Avengers Debut Trailer
According to the scooper, the Avengers: Doomsday trailer will premiere before James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash and should be considered a teaser rather than a proper trailer. Nonetheless, its short runtime is very notable: previously, the shortest first trailer in this franchise was for The Avengers, which clocked in at 2:04. The debut trailers for this franchise just got longer over time, with Infinity War’s trailer clocking in at 2:24 and Endgame’s trailer at 2:25.
While the scooper didn’t have an exact runtime, his report that it will be a little over a minute means that our first look at Avengers: Doomsday will be about half the length of our first look at the original Avengers movie. Why, then, is Marvel cutting our first look at its biggest movie since Endgame so short? There are many possibilities, but the likeliest one is that Marvel is cutting the trailer length in half because they are worried about the pesky modern phenomenon known as superhero fatigue.
Superhero Fatigue Sets In
It’s an open secret that the MCU has been suffering in recent years: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was a high-profile disappointment, and The Marvels lost the studio a ton of money, serving as an early signal that audiences weren’t going to show up to movies simply because of the Marvel brand. While Deadpool & Wolverine was a success (as you might expect from a team-up of the two most popular superheroes in movie history), the highly anticipated sequel Captain America: Brave New World was both a critical and commercial failure.
Furthermore, even critically beloved debut movies like Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps have become financial disappointments. Considering that both good and bad Marvel movies are crashing out at the box office, most people blame this subpar performance on superhero fatigue. Now, in order to succeed, Marvel needs to find creative ways to solve the very problem they created.
A Short Trailer Sends A Message
Marvel is, of course, chiefly responsible for superhero fatigue, flooding both the big screen and the small screen with as much tights-and-flights content as humanly possible. The company is very well aware of this phenomenon, which is likely why the first Avengers: Doomsday trailer is so short. Audiences are already worried about Marvel having too much content to keep up with, so the first look at the studio’s hottest new movie is being kept almost cartoonishly short to send a message: namely, that this movie will be easy to keep up with and not require you to do any real “homework” beyond rewatching Endgame.
This also has the effect of making the trailer into more of a sizzle reel than anything else. At just over a minute long, this teaser may very well be comprised of nothing but cool fights, killer cameos, and quippy dialogue. That may be enough to allay the concerns of audiences worried that Doomsday will be a long slog like Eternals or a movie chock full of boring filler scenes like Captain America: Brave New World.
A scene from Marvel’s The Eternals
Finally, a short trailer means that those going to see the latest Avatar movie are more likely to stick around for this early look at Avengers: Doomsday. A long trailer gives people time to run to the bathroom or head to the lobby for a drink or a bucket of popcorn (hopefully, one where Wolverine doesn’t look like he’s about to chug something far different than a beer), but a shorter trailer keeps people rooted in their seats. If nothing else, a short teaser full of nothing but the best bits of Doomsday could do the impossible: get general audiences genuinely hyped for a Marvel movie.
That’s a hope that I personally share. As an aging nerd with a home full of Marvel ephemera, I would like nothing more than for the MCU to get its mojo back. But the middling performance of Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps proves that simply being a good film isn’t enough to win over audiences who have spent years mired in superhero fatigue. Unless Avengers: Doomsday absolutely blows us all away, this highly anticipated film may be pairing a record-short first trailer with a record-short theatrical run, destined to slowly die in the twilight of obsolescence of Disney+.