A new idea in a movie industry landscape rife with sequels and franchise instalments is almost always worth celebrating, and this is certainly true for Damsel, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and starring Millie Bobby Brown. A central idea of the film appears to be to play on our expectations of the story and aesthetic of well-worn fairy tale tropes; the way the trailer’s musical arrangement hews to this idea displays a similar commitment to originality through subverting our aural expectations.

This week sees the theatrical release of Madame Web, a Sony film based on Marvel Comics character Cassie Web, a Manhattan paramedic who can see the future. I love how this trailer uses music and sound reminiscent of the “glitch” genre of electronic music to reinforce the main character’s glitching between different realities, past and present.

The latest offering from A24 shows no hint of slowing down on the type of off-kilter, thoughtful cinema the studio is known for. The first half minute of the trailer focuses on atmospheric sounds amidst a dramatic dialogue, clearly establishing that a new civil war has broken out in what seems to be a near-future United States. Swirling strings and a muted siren presage the din of a panicked crowd, leading up to an audiovisual blackout at 0:27 with the diegetic click of a camera shutter—a strong indicator that a photojournalist features prominently in the film.

Australian director George Miller’s reboot of his Mad Max series of films continues this summer, with the release of Furiosa: A Mad Max Story, a prequel to the block- buster Mad Max Fury Road (2015). We analyze a lot of action film trailers on our Trailaurality blog, and I love that instead of simply building towards a predictable se- ries of “trailer triplets,” this Furiosa trailer does more with less: it occupies vast spaces between dialogue, using sound design, thoughtful instrumental layering and unusual time signatures to create suspenseful builds.

Coming from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss as well as Alexander Woo, the streaming series 3 Body Problem is a sci-fi thriller based on a trilogy of books of the same name by Chinese author Liu Cixin. Its screen adaptation for Netflix was undoubtedly spurred in part by the series being recommended by Games of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin, in addition to multiple high profile public figures such as Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg.

Sonically, the Official Trailer for Masters of the Air is broken into five distinct sections which flow from one into the next: a micro-teaser; an ambient love theme; a suspenseful build; an air battle sequence filled with combat sound design; then a triumphant rendering of the earlier love theme. Masters of the Air is an upcoming Apple TV+ miniseries about US Air Force pilots and their raids over Nazi Germany, starring Austin Butler (The Bikeriders, Elvis).

It’s been an eventful year for film trailers, and 2023 had much to offer on the order of trailer music that’s original, incisive, and thought-provoking. Here are a few trailers and overall campaigns that we feel are particularly noteworthy.

In the world of film music, there are a handful of composers whose sound is so distinct you need only mention their name and it conjures up vivid cinematic imagery and emotion. Besides the two dominant paradigm shifters, John Williams and Hans Zimmer, other names such as Bernard Herrmann, Howard Shore and Danny Elfman may come to mind. But Ennio Morricone holds a coveted place in the hearts of film composers and film lovers, because of his effortless and sweeping gift for creating melodies, knack for imagining distinct and iconically memorable tone combinations, and the immense depth and breadth of his musical contributions.

As much as this trailer is about the much-hyped sequel to the best-selling game of all time, with over 185 million units sold, it’s also a curious case of music curation. With Grand Theft Auto V having been released over a decade ago, it’s something of a generational event. And the fact that the sixth instalment revisits Vice City (a fictionalized version of Miami) reinforces this idea.

This week let’s explore a musically reductive but effective teaser for Season 2 of House of the Dragon, a tv series on Max. Drawing on parts of the book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin (2018), this series is a prequel to the wildly successful Game of Thrones saga.

Fresh off the massive success that the Super Mario Bros. Movie turned out to be, Illumination is back with their standard family fare in the form of Migration. This offering promises to follow the travels—and travails—of a family of ducks, heading south for winter (Jamaica, in particular).

In 2021 Zack Snyder brought us his epic cut of the film Justice League - and legitimately challenged the dominance of the Avengers film franchise in the process. Maybe you’re wondering what Snyder has been cooking up for us since then? Turns out, his next film will give the Star Wars franchise a run for its money: Rebel Moon has been percolating in Snyder’s mind for decades, as he explains in his engaging breakdown of the film’s latest trailer. It’s currently a two-part (more to come?) sci-fi space opera with Part One: A Child of Fire coming December 22nd, and Part Two: The Scargiver on its way in 2024.

Certainly promising to be one of the most original silver screen outings this year, Searchlight’s Poor Things is based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray and covers similar territory to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite), Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, who also serves as producer) is brought back to life by Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe); Bella quickly decides to run off on an adventure with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) across continents in a quest to regain worldly experience after lost time.

Like the sisters Celie and Nettie in Alice Walker’s original novel, The Color Purple has had quite a journey. Its first film adaptation in 1985 launched the careers of both Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. In 2005 the story was adapted for Broadway. This Christmas, a new film adaptation of The Color Purple is headed for theatres, with a production team featuring Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, and Quincy Jones, all of whom were part of the original 1985 film.

The musician biopic trend that really reignited around the mid-2010s with Straight Outta Compton appears to have no end in sight, with Bob Marley set to get his due in the new year. After a six-second micro-teaser (complete with countdown) that helps set a context with a snippet of the 1977 hit “Jamming,” we’re greeted with a massive crowd clapping to the beat. We hear what’s identifiably a split-second sample of the piano from “Jamming, ”repeating in synch with the light until it fades in a wave of reverb at 0:16, when we get our first look at the eponymous king of reggae, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir. “From the beginning,” Marley quips when asked where he wants to start—and the soundtrack responds in kind, with the iconic drum intro to “Jamming.”

The lines between Korean and American popular culture continue to blur. Netflix is a California-based media streaming company whose most popular tv series to-date is the South Korean series Squid Game, launched in 2021—it represents the country’s massively successful Netflix franchise. While we wait for next year’s release of Squid Game Season 2 Netflix offers us a new 10-episode reality tv series called Squid Game: The Challenge. In contrast to the graphic, dramatic intensity of the original series, The Challenge seems to take the battle royale concept and replace bloody murder with the interpersonal dramas and candid participant narration that have defined elimination game reality tv ever since Survivor hit the screens a quarter-century ago.

Having claimed he was finished his animated movie-making career from time to time since 1998’s Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki has come out of retirement once more. Originally titled in Japan as How Do You Live?, after Miyazaki’s favourite childhood novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, the animated film received its North American debut recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. American distributor GKIDS describes The Boy and the Heron as a “semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship,” and explores a space where living and dead beings coexist.

The Bikeriders is a fast-paced drama about a fictional 1960s US Midwest biker gang, starring Austin Butler (who co-starred with Tom Hanks last year in Elvis) as Benny. As we hear the slow purr of bike engines, the trailer opens with Johnny (Tom Hardy, star of Mad Max) encouraging Benny to become leader of their gang. In the first 20 seconds, this roadside conversation is gradually intercut with other shots – close-ups of gloves on handlebars, a speedometer, bikers cruising open country, Benny screaming in ecstasy as he rides – as a single note begins to swell in the sound mix. Benny’s scream lasts from 0.16-0.18, spanning across five shots including Benny loading a gun and Johnny stabbing a man in the gut, while the scream’s tone is intensified by the added sounds of an accelerating engine and low thuds evoking a racing heartbeat.

Not to be outdone by Taylor Swift’s concert film theatrical release next week, Beyoncé is set to deliver her own in time for the holiday season. Queen Bey is no stranger to film, though it’s been four years since her last concert doc—and now, there’s the promise of a fuller concert experience by going for a theatrical release.

Step aside Tom Cruise: make way for the claymation hens! This fall we’ll behold a long-awaited sequel to the 2000 film Chicken Run, which was the first film created by Aardman Animations, known for their Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep franchises. The plot in Chicken Run focused on a group of hens escaping from a chicken farm. But now, in a bizarre reversal – for which we’ll have to watch the sequel to understand why – the upcoming Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget features this same group of hens seeking to break into a maximum security, laser-fortified and robot-guarded chicken farm.