ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the function of promotional screen intermediaries in the film industry, focusing on the work of trailer houses and the marketing of the Hollywood blockbuster. The circulation of Hollywood movies is structured in part by local promotional intermediaries with their own specific production cultures. The chapter argues that the promotional screen content for movies can be understood as contributing to the popular imagination of what cinema is, and might be, in the early twenty-first century. Marich argues that the temporal demands of the marketing of movies, whose success is deemed to depend on their box office revenue in the opening weekend, has made advertising spots within non-scripted programmes particularly popular because they create a greater urgency to watch in real time. The marketing for The Hunger Games franchise paints a picture of a complex landscape in which online promotion functions alongside and is integrated with more traditional forms of promotional content, such as trailers and posters.
