Because of the TV upfronts, when advertising time is bought and sold months in advance, it’s been an unusually busy week for trailers. There aren’t many times that new trailers for Only Murders in the Building and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power wouldn’t make the cut. But when rounding up the best movie and TV show trailers of the week of May 17, they can’t all be winners.
There’s a deceptively simple formula to making a great trailer. It has to show enough to entice the audience and yet not spoil the story by making us feel like we’ve already seen the major plot points. It’s shocking how many movies give away their own ending in the trailer. Fortunately, none of our picks for the week have too many spoilers. And we can’t wait to watch these films and TV series.
House of the Dragon season 2
Somebody at HBO and Max just couldn’t resist dropping the new trailer for House of the Dragon season 2 on the same day that The Rings of Power season 2 had its first trailer. Let’s just say that the dragons ate the not-quite Hobbits for lunch.
The events that are unfolding in this season were hinted at in Game of Thrones, because the Targaryen civil war is the entire reason why dragons were nearly extinct in the original series. And we suspect that by the end of this show, there won’t be many Targaryens left either.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
It took Will Smith and Martin Lawrence 17 years to make the third Bad Boys movie, Bad Boys for Life, but only four years to make the fourth film, Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Detective Lieutenants Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) have made a career out of chasing bad guys.
This time, the bad guys and the cops are chasing them, after someone went through the trouble of framing them and the late Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano). It’s probably going to take a lot of shooting and explosions to clear their names.
Wicked: Part One
If you’ve never heard of Wicked, you may have been living under a rock for the last 21 years. This Wizard of Oz prequel was a smash musical on Broadway that’s gone on tour around the world. Universal has so much confidence that Wicked is going to be a hit that the film is being split into two parts.
The story is all about the friendship between Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande) before they were known as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. But in the land of Oz, their friendship isn’t built to last.
Dune: Prophecy
Until recently, Dune: Prophecy was known as Dune: The Sisterhood. The name change is a bit baffling considering that the sisterhood that will become the Bene Gesserit is still at the heart of the series. This series acts as a prequel to the Dune movies, and takes place 10,000 years before Paul Atreides was born.
The trailer does a very good job of explaining what the sisterhood is and how it rose to power and influence amid the galactic empire. However, that power comes at a cost, and even the sisterhood has divisions that may tear it apart from within.
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