There was a time when a movie trailer wasn’t just a marketing tool—it was an art form in itself. A two-minute cinematic invitation, carefully designed to ignite curiosity, stir emotions, and leave audiences desperate to experience the full story on the big screen. A great trailer is a masterclass in restraint, intrigue, and storytelling craft. It doesn’t just show a movie—it sells an experience.
But somewhere along the way, Bollywood completely lost the plot.
Instead of crafting believable, engaging, compelling, relevant, and meaningful trailers, Bollywood filmmakers have turned them into overcooked, high-decibel VFX showreels that prioritize sheer noise over narrative clarity. Rather than teasing a gripping story, these trailers scream, "Look at our budget! Look at our CGI! Look at our slow-motion hero shots!" It’s a chaotic sensory overload that exhausts rather than excites.
Take Samrat Prithviraj, Brahmastra, or Pathaan—trailers that felt more like fireworks displays than storytelling previews. They gave away too much, told us too little, and bombarded us with visual and audio noise instead of emotional depth. Instead of making us care about the characters, stakes, and conflicts, they drowned us in a sea of rapid-cut explosions, deafening background scores, and exaggerated one-liners.
And here’s the biggest irony—Bollywood then slaps ‘100 MILLION VIEWS!’ on the YouTube banner and calls it a success.
A great trailer doesn’t need to shout to be heard. It doesn’t need to reveal everything to make an impact. It only needs to do one thing: tell just enough of a compelling story to make the audience RUN (not walk) to the theater.
Hollywood understands this. Watch the trailers for Lincoln, Interstellar, CODA, or Gladiator II—and you’ll see how they create anticipation without spoon-feeding the entire plot. They know the secret: "Less is More."
So what makes a trailer great? How can Bollywood fix its trailer game before audiences completely tune out?
Let’s break it down.
The Essential Elements of a Great Trailer
A well-crafted movie trailer functions on three core principles:
Emotional Hook – The trailer must evoke a strong emotion (curiosity, awe, dread, inspiration).
Story Structure – A good trailer has its own beginning, middle, and end, teasing the larger film without spoiling it.
Moments That Stick – A trailer should leave you with at least one unforgettable visual, line, or idea.
Case Study 1: Lincoln (2012) – A Masterclass In Dramatic Tension
Spielberg’s Lincoln was an intensely dialogue-driven historical drama, yet its trailer made it riveting cinema. How?
Opens with somber visuals and the soft strains of a war drum.
Slowly reveals Daniel Day-Lewis’s magnetic presence as Lincoln.
Dialogue builds tension—Lincoln isn’t just a wise leader, he’s a man fighting impossible odds.
The final shot: “Shall we stop this bleeding?”—pure chills.
This trailer doesn’t just say, “Hey, watch a history film.” It dares you to witness the fight that shaped a nation.
Now imagine if Lincoln had a Bollywood-style trailer—it would be two and a half minutes of battlefield explosions, screaming crowds, and a CGI-enhanced Abraham Lincoln riding a horse through fire. Zero nuance, all noise.
Sound familiar?
Case Study 2: Coda (2021) – The Trailer That Made Us Cry
An indie drama about a deaf family shouldn’t, by conventional logic, have a blockbuster-level trailer. But CODA’s trailer was magnetic.
Opens with a heartfelt scene—the teenage protagonist, Ruby, translating for her deaf father.
Introduces conflict—Ruby’s love for music clashes with her family’s reliance on her.
Builds to an emotional crescendo—a quiet moment of her father touching her throat to “hear” her sing.
This is how you hook an audience. You don’t just tell them what the movie is about—you make them feel the story.
Bollywood, on the other hand, approaches storytelling like a circus act—more stunts, more edits, more CGI, but no heart.
Case Study 3: Gladiator II (2024) – Building Hype Without Spoilers
The Gladiator II trailer had every reason to fail—a sequel 20+ years later, a new protagonist, and the massive shadow of the original film. And yet, it delivered.
Opens with haunting echoes of the past—Maximus’ legacy still looms.
Introduces Paul Mescal’s character through silent, commanding visuals.
Hints at a deeper political conflict without giving away the entire plot.
The final moment? A brief, chilling shot of Denzel Washington’s villainous gaze.
This is how you tease—you give just enough for audiences to connect the dots.
A Bollywood equivalent would have loud battle scenes, over-explained dialogue, and multiple action sequences shoved in with no breathing space. The subtlety of the Gladiator II trailer is entirely absent in Bollywood’s trailer culture.
Case Study 4: Interstellar (2014) – Pure Cinematic Magic
How do you sell a science-fiction epic about space, time, and love in under three minutes? Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar trailer did it flawlessly.
Opens with a deeply personal moment—McConaughey with his daughter, Murph.
Introduces the premise with awe—Earth is dying, and humanity must explore the unknown.
Builds a rising tension—scientific wonder vs. emotional stakes.
Ends with a single, breathtaking image—the tiny spaceship against Saturn’s rings.
Interstellar didn’t just tell you it was a sci-fi masterpiece. It made you feel like you were already floating in space.
Now imagine a Bollywood equivalent. It would probably start with an asteroid crash, a five-second cut of someone crying, followed by an action sequence of the hero punching a meteor.
Zero depth. Just noise.
Where Bollywood Trailers Fail
Bollywood trailers fail on three critical fronts:
1. No Story, Just Montages
Bollywood trailers are overstuffed montages that lack structure.
They jump randomly from scene to scene, giving no sense of narrative flow.
They focus on surface-level spectacle rather than emotional engagement.
They reveal too much, often spoiling major plot points in the process.
Compare this with Gladiator II—a teaser that reveals nothing yet still grips you.
2. Loudness ≠ Excitement
Bollywood believes that the louder a trailer is, the more exciting it will feel.
Relentless background scores that make dialogue almost unintelligible.
Explosions, stunts, slow-motion shots—all thrown in at maximum volume.
By the time the trailer ends, the audience feels exhausted, not intrigued.
Hollywood’s best trailers, on the other hand, understand that silence can be just as powerful as sound (CODA’s trailer is a perfect example).
3. Selling the Star, Not The Story
Bollywood still clings to the star system, designing trailers as glorified ego-boosters for actors.
A trailer should sell the movie, not just the celebrity in it.
Hollywood’s best trailers (The Social Network, The Revenant) put the story first.
A Pathaan or Brahmastra trailer, however, will focus on star close-ups and action shots instead of actual stakes.
Trailer Failures: "Samrat Prithviraj," "Brahmastra," & "Pathaan"
While Bollywood continues to push its high-budget, high-octane, VFX-laden spectacles, its trailers have consistently failed at doing what a trailer is supposed to do—hooking the audience with a compelling story. Instead of intriguing viewers, Bollywood trailers often overwhelm, exhaust, and ultimately turn off potential audiences by committing the same three fundamental errors:
1. NO STORY, JUST MONTAGES
A trailer should have a narrative arc—Bollywood trailers feel like chaotic highlight reels.
2. LOUDNESS ≠ EXCITEMENT
High volume, heavy CGI, and rapid cuts do not compensate for a lack of emotional engagement.
3. SELLING THE STAR, NOT THE STORY
Story should be about the hero, not just the actors flexing in slow motion.
Now, let’s break down how the trailers for Samrat Prithviraj, Brahmastra, and Pathaan fail spectacularly on these three fronts.
🚨 Failure #1: Samrat Prithviraj (2022)
A historical epic that became an over-edited mess
1. No Story, Just Montages
The trailer is essentially a mash-up of random battle sequences, royal court scenes, and grand speeches, but at no point does it establish a clear story.
Who is Prithviraj? What is his internal conflict? What is his greatest challenge? The trailer gives no sense of an emotional journey.
It bombards us with too many locations, too many characters, and too much exposition, yet we come away knowing nothing about the heart of the film.
2. Loudness ≠ Excitement
The background score is deafening, with every battle scene sounding like a war drum solo on steroids.
Overly dramatic narration replaces actual storytelling, making it feel more like a history textbook being yelled at you rather than an engaging cinematic experience.
Too many rapid cuts make it impossible to focus—every second is either a sword fight, a horse galloping, or someone screaming.
3. Selling The Star, Not The Story
Akshay Kumar is in almost every shot, but never feels like Prithviraj Chauhan—he feels like Akshay Kumar in a historical costume.
The trailer is less about Prithviraj's legend and more about glorifying Akshay Kumar—his grand entrances, his dramatic stares, his overly-rehearsed one-liners.
The costume and set design might be visually grand, but they feel too sanitized, too fake, making it impossible to believe in the world being created.
Final Trailer Verdict:
❌ More of a history lesson than a compelling story. Too loud, too disjointed, and too focused on Akshay rather than the legend of Prithviraj.
🚨 Failure #2: Brahmastra (2022)
Bollywood’s "Avengers" attempt, but the trailer is a sensory overload with no emotional hook.
1. No Story, Just Montages
The trailer is all spectacle, no substance. It showcases an endless barrage of CGI fireballs, mystical weapons, and cosmic energy blasts, but fails to establish what the story is actually about.
Who is Shiva? What is his journey? What does he want? The trailer gives no reason to emotionally invest in him.
There is zero world-building—everything is thrown at the audience without context.
2. Loudness ≠ Excitement
The background score is overwhelming, and every explosion, fireball, and slow-motion pose is dialed up to 100.
The editing is relentless, with flashy CGI thrown in every two seconds, making it impossible to process any real stakes.
The dialogue feels over-dramatized, as if it's trying too hard to sound grand but ultimately comes across as shallow.
3. Selling The Star, Not The Story
The trailer is a Ranbir Kapoor highlight reel rather than an introduction to the Brahmastra universe.
Alia Bhatt is shoehorned in, with no real purpose other than reacting to Ranbir’s powers and saying his name (seriously, she just keeps repeating "Shiva" throughout the trailer).
The film is marketed as a VFX spectacle, but VFX alone cannot make a movie engaging, compelling, or meaningful.
The trailer relies on big-name cameos (Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna, and SRK’s rumored presence) rather than solid storytelling.
Final Trailer Verdict:
❌ A chaotic VFX showreel with no real emotional hook. Feels like a Bollywood video game rather than a compelling film.
🚨 Failure #3: Pathaan (2023)
An action-packed spy thriller that falls into every Bollywood trailer trap.
1. No Story, Just Montages
The Pathaan trailer is essentially a mashup of explosions, high-speed chases, and one-liners—but what’s the story?
What is Pathaan’s mission? Why is he fighting? Who are the villains? Instead of setting up the conflict, the trailer just bombards us with action set-pieces.
The emotional stakes are non-existent—we see fight scenes, but we never understand why we should care.
2. Loudness ≠ Excitement
The trailer is visually and sonically exhausting.
The background music is blaring, with no quiet moments to build suspense.
The dialogue is ridiculously over-the-top, with cringe-worthy lines like "Pathaan is not a name, it’s an emotion."
3. Selling The Star, Not the Story
The entire trailer exists to glorify Shah Rukh Khan—it’s less about Pathaan’s journey and more about SRK’s return to action cinema.
John Abraham and Deepika Padukone are reduced to side characters, making it clear that the movie is just about making SRK look cool.
The focus is on abs, slow-motion struts, and fancy gadgets, rather than any real espionage intrigue.
Final Trailer Verdict:
❌ Feels like a Bollywood James Bond imitation, with more focus on SRK’s style than on building a gripping spy thriller.
🚨Why Bollywood Trailers Keep Failing
Bollywood has forgotten that trailers are supposed to tease a story, not scream for attention.
✅ Hollywood trailers intrigue, Bollywood trailers overwhelm.
✅ Hollywood trailers let moments breathe, Bollywood trailers rush through everything.
✅ Hollywood sells emotion, Bollywood sells brand deals.
Great trailers should spark curiosity, not headaches. Until Bollywood embraces storytelling over spectacle, its trailers will remain as forgettable as the films they advertise.
Bollywood, take notes. The audience isn’t fooled anymore.
The Art of Trailer Making: How to Craft a Cinematic Invitation That Audiences Can’t Resist
In a world where audiences are bombarded with content from all directions, a movie trailer isn’t just a preview—it’s the first, and sometimes the only, chance to convince viewers that your film is worth their time and money. A great trailer isn’t just a random sequence of high-octane shots, bombastic music, and rapid-cut visuals; it is an art form in itself, a miniature masterpiece of storytelling that ignites curiosity, builds anticipation, and leaves an unforgettable impression.
But here’s the problem: Bollywood has completely lost this art.
Instead of crafting compelling cinematic invitations, most Bollywood trailers have become over-edited, chaotic montages that scream, "Look at our VFX!" while failing to tell a believable, engaging, compelling, relevant, and meaningful story. No wonder audiences increasingly prefer watching the trailer reaction videos over actually buying a ticket to watch the movie!
So, how do you create a great trailer? What makes some trailers so compelling that audiences rush to theaters, while others feel like cringe-worthy, overcooked marketing gimmicks?
1. Every Great Trailer Tells a Story
A trailer should never be a highlight reel of ‘cool’ shots stitched together in a random sequence. Instead, it must be a well-crafted, three-act narrative in itself, providing just enough plot to hook the audience without spoiling the film.
✅ Introduce the protagonist – Who is the story about? What’s their core conflict?
✅ Set up the stakes – What is at risk? Why should the audience care?
✅ Tease the resolution, but don’t reveal it – Keep them guessing, make them desperate to know what happens next.
🎥 Example: Lincoln (2012)The Lincoln trailer doesn’t throw a history lesson at the audience—it builds tension, urgency, and emotional weight by focusing on the moral dilemma of passing the 13th Amendment. It makes you feel the gravity of Abraham Lincoln’s struggle, even without needing extravagant VFX or bombastic action sequences.
❌ What Bollywood Does Instead: Samrat Prithviraj and Brahmastra bombard the audience with random scenes, random explosions, and random screaming dialogue—but never tell a story. Instead of teasing the emotional core, they prioritize visual gimmicks over compelling narratives.
2. Less is More: Intrigue Over Information
A trailer should never explain everything—it should raise questions that demand answers. The best trailers withhold information, making the audience eager to uncover the mystery.
✅ Use visual storytelling instead of excessive narration
✅ Tease a big twist without giving it away
✅ Let the audience piece things together rather than spoon-feeding them
🎥 Example: Interstellar (2014)The Interstellar trailer doesn’t give away the entire plot. Instead, it masterfully uses visual storytelling, Hans Zimmer’s haunting score, and Matthew McConaughey’s understated emotions to evoke wonder, longing, and a sense of impending loss.
❌ What Bollywood Does Instead: Pathaan spells out every single plot point in its trailer. The dialogue literally announces what’s happening, what’s about to happen, and what it all means—leaving nothing to the imagination. Why should the audience watch the movie if they already know exactly what’s coming?
3. Emotional Engagement Over Sensory Overload
A great trailer doesn’t just show action; it makes you feel something. The strongest trailers connect with audiences on an emotional level, whether it’s suspense, laughter, nostalgia, or sheer excitement.
✅ Use music that enhances, not overpowers
✅ Let the moments breathe instead of cramming 100 shots into 30 seconds
✅ Prioritize character-driven moments over mindless spectacle
🎥 Example: CODA (2021)The CODA trailer makes you fall in love with its protagonist without ever feeling like it’s ‘selling’ the movie. The heartfelt family moments, the small but profound struggles—it all feels organic, genuine, and deeply moving.
❌ What Bollywood Does Instead: Brahmastra and Samrat Prithviraj trailers feel like two-minute-long VFX explosions with zero breathing space. The editing is so frantic, the music so overpowering, and the dialogue so forced that the audience has no room to feel anything.
4. The Right Music & Sound Design Make All the Difference
Music in a trailer should be more than just background noise—it should be a storytelling tool that elevates tension, builds anticipation, and leaves a lasting impact.
✅ Use dynamic scoring that evolves as the trailer progresses
✅ Let silence be part of the sound design—sometimes, the absence of music is just as powerful
✅ Match the pacing of the visuals with the music’s emotional arc
🎥 Example: Gladiator II (2024)The Gladiator II trailer strategically builds tension with its score, starting slow and brooding, gradually intensifying as stakes are raised and battles loom. The pacing of the cuts aligns perfectly with the rhythm of the music, creating a visceral, immersive experience.
❌ What Bollywood Does Instead: Pathaan and Brahmastra trailers blast you with over-the-top orchestral scores from start to finish, leaving no room for build-up or contrast. There’s no subtlety, no nuance—just a wall of sound that exhausts rather than excites.
5. The Final Hook: Leave the Audience Wanting More
A great trailer ends on an unforgettable note—a powerful visual, an iconic line of dialogue, or a dramatic cliffhanger that lingers in the audience’s mind.
✅ Use a final image or line that sparks curiosity
✅ Cut to black at just the right moment
✅ Leave one burning question unanswered
🎥 Example: Inception (2010)The Inception trailer ends with the spinning top, hinting at the film’s central mystery without giving anything away. It leaves audiences buzzing with curiosity, sparking endless discussion before the film even releases.
❌ What Bollywood Does Instead: Bollywood trailers often end with a loud bang, an action pose, or a generic heroic one-liner—but no intrigue, no depth, no lasting impact. By the time the trailer fades out, the audience already feels exhausted rather than eager.
In Short, How Bollywood Can Fix Its Trailers
🎬 A great trailer isn’t about how much you show—it’s about how much you leave unsaid.
🎬 It’s about storytelling, not spectacle.
🎬 It’s about teasing, not telling.
🎬 It’s about intrigue, not information overload.
✅ Focus on the emotional arc, not just flashy sequences.
✅ Use sound and music strategically, rather than turning everything up to 11.
✅ Give the audience a reason to invest in the story, not just admire the visuals.
Until Bollywood fixes its trailers, the audience will continue to watch them with skepticism rather than excitement.
Because if a trailer can’t even get storytelling right, why should we believe the movie will?
Bollywood, It’s Time to Fix Your Trailers—Before the Audience Tunes Out for Good
A great movie trailer is not just a marketing tool—it’s the first promise a filmmaker makes to the audience. It is the cinematic handshake, the first impression, the emotional hook that pulls people into the story before they’ve even bought a ticket. It’s the art of making people feel that they need to watch the movie.
And yet, Bollywood has turned its trailers into overcooked VFX montages, drowning storytelling in explosions, deafening soundtracks, and rapid-fire edits that say everything—except what the film is actually about. Instead of making people run to the theaters, these trailers leave them confused, exhausted, or worse—completely indifferent.
Meanwhile, Hollywood continues to master the game. A great trailer doesn’t scream for attention—it whispers just enough to intrigue. It doesn’t need to tell the whole story—it teases just enough to make us desperate to know more.
🎬 Look at the best trailers ever made:
Interstellar—built entirely on emotion and mystery, with barely any dialogue.
Gladiator II—revealed just enough of the stakes, character arcs, and stunning cinematography without over-explaining.
Lincoln—crafted tension and gravitas without a single unnecessary explosion.
CODA—conveyed its heart, struggle, and triumph in a way that made you feel something.
Now compare this to Samrat Prithviraj, Brahmastra, or Pathaan—which felt more like desperate "Look at us!" VFX auditions rather than compelling story invitations.
So how does Bollywood fix this?
✅ Prioritize storytelling over spectacle. A trailer is about making people care, not just showing them expensive CGI.
✅ Tease, don’t tell. The best trailers reveal just enough to hook the audience, not the entire movie in 3 minutes.
✅ Create emotional stakes. A film trailer should make us feel something—excitement, dread, wonder—not just sensory overload.
✅ Stop pretending trailer views = success. A billion YouTube views mean nothing if audiences don’t buy tickets.
✅ Craft trailers as an art form. The best filmmakers know that every frame of a trailer is a strategic choice.
Bollywood doesn’t lack talent—it lacks storytelling discipline. The audience is smarter than ever, and they’re done falling for flashy deception. Give them something worth their time, their money, and their emotions. Because no amount of shiny object syndrome or dadagiri dialogue delivery can replace the raw power of a well-told story.
So, the question is: Will Bollywood learn, or will it keep screaming into the void while its audience walks away?
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