In the film music world, it’s fair to say there isn’t a greater living legend than John Williams; his scores have graced movie theatres across almost seven decades (from 1958’s Daddy-O to 2024’s Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny). It only takes a couple of notes for Williams to weave magic from thin air—evidenced by the famous semitone motif for Jaws that plays about eleven seconds into the trailer.

With Netflix as the dominant streaming platform globally, and Squid Game one of its most popular series ever, anticipation is mounting for the December 26th launch of Season 2. We blogged about Squid Game’s Season 2 I Welcome Players trailer back in August, and since then Netflix has been releasing trailers for the new season left, right, and centre. Today I’ll dive into the “Season 2 | You’re Invited” trailer released September 30th.

After a broad, symphonic opening with light strings for the first fifteen seconds and some expository monologue, the first strums to Timothée Chalamet’s cover of “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” (written by Dylan in the summer of 1962 and released in 1963) begin to emerge. As the off-screen narrator suggests Dylan (Chalamet) is “a glimpse of the future”, we see a view of him playing in the room, and we hear the iconic voice.

Are you under 15 years of age in North America? If so, chances are you’ve heard of the wildly successful Dog Man graphic novel series by Dav Pilkey. For those of you who haven’t you can soon experience the story on the silver screen, in claymation. The new Dog Man trailer opens with a five second microteaser featuring the vocal hook from Daft Punk’s 2001 song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”

Many Pixar movies operate under the premise of “what if (insert character here) had feelings?”—and as it turns out, Dreamworks can do it just as well, thank you very much. As the sonic design and soundtrack for The Wild Robot’s second trailer would indicate, the studio continues to veer towards more nuanced animated water, as opposed to, say, Illumination fare. Through a combination of sombre yet heroic musical fare and some editing conventions of comedy trailers, The Wild Robot appears to attempt to have it both ways—and the success of that approach is up for debate.

The teaser trailer for A Minecraft Movie is cut to a remix of the 1967 classic “Magical Mystery Tour.” From deep in The Beatles’ psychedelic era, this song is a prime choice for a film that presents like some bewildering drug trip through an 8-year old’s favourite video game. While the film’s teaser trailer from last week has gone viral, criticism of the film’s concept and choice of Jack Black as Steve has been pouring in.

Lauded as a career milestone for Demi Moore after its premiere at Cannes film festival with a 13-minute ovation, The Substance is body horror at its best (or is that worst?).

In an epic cross-cultural collaboration, director Kenji Kamiyama has answered the question “What if The Lord of the Rings were anime?” For the first 17 seconds of this trailer, the orchestral brass play Howard Shore’s resounding Riders of Rohan theme as we see six live action shots of Gandalf and company galloping in Rohan, from The Two Towers.

After three years, Squid Game returns to Netflix with the original deadly game show’s winner, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae)—as known at Player 456—returning to the game with the intent of finding its mastermind and ending it altogether.

The world has changed immensely since 1937, so the production team creating the new live action Snow White walk an unenviable tightrope in honouring a classic tale while making the storyline relevant and palatable to modern audiences. It comes on the heels of the “live action” Lion King (called Mufasa - due out in December), at a time when Disney seems intent on mining its catalogue in light of recent misfires in the realm of original animated movies (e.g. Elio and Wish).

For this soft reboot of the Alien franchise, while the first thirty seconds or so of the trailer go without music on the soundtrack, opting for a focus on sound effects which emphasizes the emptiness of space, by 0:32 we hear strains of the vocal from “You Are My Lucky Star”, from 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, leading to a haunting cover version of the track.

Director Morgan Neville, who brought us the film “20 Feet From Stardom” has undertaken to tell the story of the life and work of Pharrell Williams, a phenomenal pop music producer and vocalist who has created countless hit records. Their new film–Piece by Piece–is an animated LEGO movie, and from what we can tell from the trailer, it will be hilarious.

Returning for a second season, The Rings of Power is a prequel series focused on how exactly Sauron came to antagonize and attempt to conquer Middle Earth well be- fore the original trilogy of books by J. R. Tolkien (and of course, the Peter Jackson-di- rected trilogy of the early 2000s).

In 2000 director Ridley Scott gave us Gladiator, and this November—after almost 25 years—he returns with Gladiator II. The trailer opens with a five-second microteaser featuring a sample of the word “bloodstains'' rapped by Jay-Z (more on this below), repeated 3 times, along with a series of trailer triplets, and quick cuts between 7 scenes from the film, introducing several lead characters.

No, that’s not Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan—instead, George Clooney and Brad Pitt find themselves in an unwanted partnership as both fixers are hired to cover up the same high-profile crime.

Two decades into their box office victory lap, how can superhero films remain interesting? Well, if Deadpool and Wolverine, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor: Love and Thunder are any clue, maybe superhero films shouldn’t take themselves seriously.

This week we’re looking at an unusual film on multiple fronts: Horizon is set to be released in two parts in the span of a couple of months this summer, with two additional parts yet to come and its director Kevin Costner said to be backing the film with his own money. For those who know, however, Costner is no upstart to the genre; 1990’s Dances with Wolves earned seven Academy Awards and is often referred to as a landmark film in the history of Westerns. Later, 2003’s Open Range was also a critical and commercial success; it all bodes well for the Western Horizon.

A viral trailer came out June 13th for The Instigators, which reunites Matt Damon and Casey Affleck for a new action comedy. The storyline of this film gives us the Boston accents and therapy sessions of Good Will Hunting plus the high-stakes heists of Ocean’s Eleven and the car chase carnage of The Bourne Identity. It’s Matt Damon’s Greatest Hits! I know we all enjoy a good hit song synched to a good trailer, and this trailer by aspiring AppleTV+ gives us not one but two classic pop hits remixed together.

Having been nearly a decade since the original film, one of Pixar’s most anticipated sequels, Inside Out 2, is set to arrive this summer. The trailer begins with a check-in (or reintroduction) to the original set of emotions from the first movie. Against a generic, Motown-inspired rhythmic groove with syncopated guitar and bass, we see a scene in which our protagonist, Riley, tears up the ice during a hockey game. While perfunctory (so far), the music stops at key moments, following a pattern set by many a comedic trailer as Riley’s new set of teenage emotions are introduced, with appropriate breaks in the music for punchlines.

Today we'll listen to the trailer for a supernatural horror film called The Watchers, directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night Shyamalan. This trailer features a song that fits seamlessly, while the film’s monsters are effectively woven into the trailer through the eerie sounds that they make since we never see them. The song is Sinéad O'Connor’s “Never Get Old” from 1987–a legendary Irish singer to support a film set in Ireland.