One of the worst trends to consume the business of modern movie advertising is the trailer “tease,” where a studio drops 20 seconds of a new trailer a few days before the full thing drops online in order to build up hype. It, along with the montage of rapid-fire shots from a trailer that appears at the very start of a YouTube cut of said trailer, is super annoying for regular folks that just want to watch a clip from an upcoming release (though it’s manna from heaven for bored film writers). We try not to mention them around these parts because we don’t want to waste your time — surely there’s more news out there in the world to write up than a trailer tease — but there’s an exception to every rule, and this one is this brief glimpse at George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, which marks the Mad Max: Fury Road director’s return to the screen since that film came out and won a fuckload of Oscars.
Peep it:
Here’s a synopsis:
“Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is an academic – content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. This presents two problems. First, she doubts that he is real and second, because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong. The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually she is beguiled and makes a wish that surprises them both.”
The full trailer for Three Thousand Years of Longing will hit the internet on Friday, which coincides with its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. You bet your ass we’re double-dipping, and you better bet we’ll be there day one when it hits theaters on August 31.