After 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the bar had been raised for Marvel Cinematic Universe movie trailers. Previous trailers for the studio’s works (save for that excellent Iron Man teaser) had largely been competent, but not exactly super memorable works in editing and song choices. Even 2012’s mega-hit The Avengers featured more routine trailers compared to other, weaker blockbusters of the same year, such as Prometheus. With Guardians of the Galaxy, though, multiple trailers and posters rife with personality had preceded the feature’s extraordinary box office run.
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With these trailers, the pressure was on for whatever Marvel Cinematic Universe feature dared to go next. Normal trailers wouldn’t do in this brand-new world. Luckily, Avengers: Age of Ultron was just around the corner, and its initial teaser trailer remains one of the greatest Marvel trailers in history.
What’s in the Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer?
In October 2014, when the Age of Ultron teaser debuted, the mechanical villain Ultron was not a household name. Yet the Disney/Marvel Studios marketing team decided to go all in on this baddie, as the film’s teaser immediately began with James Spader’s Ultron delivering a menacing monologue. Ominous imagery of people screaming and mechanical arms reaching up while drenched in goo began to fill the screen. Then, a ramshackle Ultron clone emerges from the darkness to confront the familiar Avengers. All the while, Spader’s eerie vocals keep solidifying to viewers why this new Avengers villain is worth keeping an eye on.
Once the Marvel Studios logo hits the screen, the teaser launches into a cover of the Pinocchio song “I’ve Got No Strings” sung by a children’s choir. Though doing this kind of thing was already a bit of a trailer cliche at this point in 2014, the ominous take on a famous Disney tune still worked like gangbusters in suggesting how truly distorted the world was under Ultron. Even reliably peppy Disney tunes can become creepy. The rest of the teaser played with such uncomfortable alterations of the status quo, including showing Thor screaming in agony, that same God of Thunder grabbing Tony Stark by the neck, and other displays of the Avengers no longer being assembled.
Rarely in the history of MCU marketing materials has a trailer for a Marvel Studios title been this grim. There are no jokes to punctuate the atmosphere (though the second Age of Ultron trailer would feature some of the final film’s many gags), and the teaser eventually ramped up the volume of both cover song and Ultron’s vocals, sealing a downright apocalyptic tone to the teaser. The final shot of the teaser is Ultron, in his final robotic form, peering down at an off-screen target while murmuring, “There are no strings on me,” before the title card comes up. A fantastic grim conclusion to a strikingly haunting teaser.
Why Else Is the Age of Ultron Teaser Noteworthy?
In the years since the Age of Ultron teaser premiered, both its central needle drop and Spader’s eerie voice work have become legendary. However, what the teaser doesn’t get enough credit for is lending grandioseness and even an apocalyptic air to certain Age of Ultron moments that play as zippier or artificial in the final cut. Bruce Banner scrambling in the winter woods after leaving his Hulk form, a side-view of a Hydra tank barging into new terrain, or Clint Barton darting between trees exude a grim atmosphere with this teaser’s editing and music choices.
Similarly, shots of Steve Rogers kicking open a door in a Hydra base and looking down in horror suggest shocking discoveries and grim expansions of the original Avengers that didn’t quite occur in the final film. Age of Ultron has plenty of charms and some truly great sequences, but it’s also a messy movie trying to do too much. That doesn’t just mean certain Age of Ultron teaser moments are better here than in the final cut. The whole teaser, in fact, has a tonal cohesion that Ultron itself lacked across its 141-minute run time.
Even the confidence in not undercutting the end-of-days vibes with humor has become easier to appreciate in the years since this teaser debuted. Subsequent MCU productions like the Black Widow post-credit scene struggled to balance drama with humor, so the full-throttle commitment to a uniquely despair-drenched atmosphere is welcome. Being the first MCU trailer after the outstanding Guardians of the Galaxy trailers wasn’t an easy ask. However, the Age of Ultron teaser lived up to the challenge and then some, in the process becoming one of the best Marvel trailers ever.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is now streaming on Disney+.
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Image courtesy of Warner
