Teaser trailer

Methods of this nature are designed to pique audience interest and anticipation, as well as increase the hype of the advertised content before release of its trailer.

[4] Later examples of major motion picture events that used teaser trailers to gain hype are The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Star Wars prequels, and the Spider-Man films.

[citation needed] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's teaser debuted three months before its intended release date, but its delay to July 15, 2009, expanded the gap to a year.

When the first teaser for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was attached to the films The Siege, A Bug's Life and Meet Joe Black, it was reported that many people had paid for admission to the film just to watch the trailer and subsequently walked out after the trailer had been screened.

One exception to this rule is Spider-Man, whose teaser trailer featured an unrelated plot of bank robbers escaping in a helicopter, getting caught from behind and propelled backward into what at first appears to be a net, then is shown to be a gigantic spider web spun between the two towers at the World Trade Center.