I’ve already written about trailers for each of these films, and I didn’t really want to revisit either one. Even if they did have second trailers released — as most movies do — it’s typically hard for me to find the new versions in a format that I can embed here (I guess I got lucky with The Happening video above). But both of these movies have special marketing circumstances regarding their new, second trailers, that I figured they were worth noting.

The new trailer for The Happening, unlike the one I wrote about previously, seems more interested in exploiting the 9/11 and terrorist-threat angle. As if we hadn’t already guessed that Shyamalan was dealing with that kind of subject matter. Of course, the first trailer was just fine at selling the movie as a sci-fi/horror thriller, which I imagine is much more appealing to a wide audience than anything relating to 9/11. Still, I kind of understand why they decided to go this route, as well. The first trailer just made the movie look like a clone of The Mist and the upcoming horror flick The Signal. Perhaps the studio wanted to distinguish itself more as a deliberately relevant and topical genre picture.

Then there’s the new trailer for 10,000 B.C., which I couldn’t find on YouTube among the 10,000 postings of the original — so here it is on Yahoo. In my opinion, this is the version that should have been released first. It has none of the wooden dialogue and acting featured in the first trailer, and really, really, really exploits the quality of the special effects. I know there are a ton of people in the target demo who already think this movie looks awesome, however this is the sort of cut that could have been instrumental in garnering interest from a more cynical, more picky mainstream audience. I’ve seen the original trailer a bunch of times in the theater, and each time it’s laughed at and verbally dismissed. If that trailer had been released after this one, it’s true it would still have been mocked, but perhaps less so.