By India McCarty
The internet is full of convincing fake movie trailers for upcoming movies, boasting thousands of views — and that’s just how some studios like it.
“Our goal was to create videos that were as close to an official trailer as a concept trailer could be,” Nikhil P. Chaudhari, one of the many minds behind these fake trailers, told Deadline.
Chaudhari, who launched popular YouTube channel Screen Culture in 2018, has been creating fake movie trailers — or, as he puts it, “concept trailers” — for years. Many of these are AI trailers.
These concept trailers might advertise movies that are set to be released but haven’t yet put out an official full-length trailer, such as this summer’s SUPERMAN, or movies that don’t exist, like a Henry Cavill-led JAMES BOND movie trailer that was so convincing Variety and The Hollywood Reporter wrote about it.
Chaudhari uses AI to embellish many of his videos, including new trailers for THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, THUNDERBOLTS and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — THE FINAL RECKONING.
“He’s probably the first person I know who treated the fan trailer genre seriously and built up a team around it,” YouTuber VJ4rawr2, who prefers not to reveal his name, shared.
Chaudhari’s Screen Culture account has earned millions of views, which translates to millions of ad dollars on YouTube. While many would say this is theft from the studios who own the raw footage Chaudhari is using, Deadline uncovered emails that show at least one studio is quietly profiting from the fake trailers.
Warner Bros. Discovery has claimed monetization on Screen Culture trailers for SUPERMAN and HOUSE OF THE DRAGON. This means that, instead of filing a copyright strike and getting the videos banned, WBD has asked YouTube to funnel any ad revenue to them instead of Screen Culture.
Deadline also reported that Sony Pictures has claimed revenue on fake trailers for SPIDER-MAN and KRAVEN THE HUNTER and that Paramount has done the same for a GLADIATOR II trailer.
WBD, Sony and Paramount declined to comment on Deadline’s findings.
Related: Deepfake JAMES BOND Trailer Drums Up Interest in Henry Cavill-Led Movie
The studios might not mind these counterfeit trailers, but SAG-AFTRA has made their position clear.
In a statement shared with Deadline, they stated, “Just as SAG-AFTRA is aggressively bargaining contract terms and creating laws to protect and enforce our members’ voice and likeness rights, we expect our bargaining partners to aggressively enforce their IP from any, and all AI misappropriation. Monetizing unauthorized, unwanted, and subpar uses of human-centered IP is a race to the bottom. It incentivizes technology companies and short-term gains at the expense of lasting human creative endeavor.”
Sam Cryer, founder and CEO of Intermission, the creative agency behind trailers for BACK TO BLACK and THE CROWN, weighed in on these fake trailers’ popularity.
“Their audience is largely franchise fans who want to know what’s coming up next, so dangling the prospect of a new piece of information is what brings those people in,” he told The Telegraph, pointing to fake trailers for sequels in popular franchises like AVATAR and THE MUMMY.
Cryer added, “And because there is already so much content out there, the AI has plenty of existing material to work with.”
While some studios seem content to let the fake trailers circulate online and collect the ad dollars, their creatives are less than thrilled.
SUPERMAN director James Gunn reacted to the fake SUPERMAN trailer with three vomiting emojis in a post on X. When someone online said they had hoped he would never see it, Gunn replied, “I wish this as well.”
So, the next time you see a trailer for a movie that seems a little too good to be true, check out the YouTube channel it’s posted on — and don’t get fooled by an AI trick.
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