Sorry Superman, Marvel Still Has the Best Superhero Movie Teaser Trailer

The first teaser trailer for James Gunn’s Superman has already become an acclaimed and widely-viewed release. Even the most dubious spectators have been charmed by the teaser’s commitment to a non-satirical tone and emphasis on emotional vulnerability. After years and years of various forms of Superman-related media apologizing for core facets of the character, Gunn’s Superman teaser has been hailed for embracing everything that makes the hero unique; plus, it’s just a dynamic and moving work in terms of editing and music choice.

The Superman teaser trailer has already become so beloved that it’s even spawned discussion and declarations that it’s the greatest superhero movie teaser trailer of all time. While it is great, there is one other inaugural trailer for a superhero film that will always reign supreme over others: Back in 2001, the world first caught a glimpse of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man in a teaser trailer that, decades later, still resonates as a wonderful piece of movie marketing.

The Spider-Man Teaser Trailer Ushered In Superhero Blockbusters

Back in the day, big summer blockbusters like T2: Judgement Day or 1998’s Godzilla kicked off their marketing campaigns with teaser trailers dropped an entire year in advance. This significant amount of lead time gave moviegoers the idea that this movie was something so special, that it simply had to be promoted eons ahead of time. So it was with 2002’s Spider-Man, which dropped a teaser in the summer of 2001 comprised exclusively of footage shot for the trailer. This promotional piece began with a bank closing up for the night, only for a group of gun-toting thieves to break into the establishment. They snatch their money and make their way to the roof of the bank, where an escape helicopter awaits them.

As they speed away, cheering on the ease of their crime, the helicopter suddenly stops. Before any of the crooks can respond, the helicopter is pulled back by some kind of web before it suddenly stops. The camera then pans out to reveal the helicopter (with the thieves still inside) caught inside a spider web spun between the Twin Towers. After this, audiences get a good look at the figure responsible for foiling these evildoers: Spider-Man. He swings around the city while distinctly early-2000s rock music blares and on-screen text urges viewers to return to theaters next summer for “the ultimate spin.”

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It’s an incredibly exciting teaser trailer full of pomp and circumstance, starting with the fact that it functions practically as a standalone short film. Today, trailers merely utilize footage from the movies they’re promoting or even eerily appropriate real-life news footage to controversial results. This Spider-Man teaser, meanwhile, went through the trouble of shooting and realizing an elaborate bank heist sequence just to launch this feature’s marketing campaign. The dedication results in a fully-distinct teaser in terms of structure and style.

The Classical & Tragic Qualities of Spider-Man’s Teaser Trailer

It’s a great touch to have the teaser orient around a group of classic bank robbers that could’ve been ripped straight out of a 1960s comic. This detail immediately reflected the creative sensibilities of Sam Raimi’s vision for the Spider-Man film and its unabashedly old-school flourishes. On top of all that, the structure of the trailer (and, most likely, limited finished visual effects for Spider-Man in the summer of 2001) means that audiences don’t get an overdose of Spidey in the trailer. There’s just enough here to get people excited, but this teaser doesn’t wade into spoiler-heavy territory that later Amazing Spider-Man trailers of the 2010s would revel in.

The Spider-Man teaser trailer’s legacy was also cemented by horrifically tragic circumstances, as it debuted just months before the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred. The teaser was immediately pulled due to its prominent use of the World Trade Center, instantly becoming a mythic relic of an era that had come to a sudden and violent end. To gaze upon this teaser now is to see how those Twin Towers were once thought of as a permanent American landmark and such a staple of New York City that they had to show up in a movie about the quintessential Big Apple superhero, Spider-Man.

Spider-Man’s teaser also functions as an unintentional ode to an arcane way of marketing superhero movies – a sort of “proof of concept” sizzle reel to get viewers to buy into the idea that Spider-Man was even a doable in live-action. It’s hard to imagine modern studios needing to spend that kind of money just to create exclusive footage to “sell” audiences on a superhero movie concept. With all due respect to the artistic virtues of Superman’s teaser, that very first Spider-Man teaser is such a unique milestone that it’ll never be dethroned.