Inside YouTube's Weird World Of Fake Movie Trailers

Fake movie trailers created with AI are proliferating across YouTube, with some garnering more views than official studio releases -- and Hollywood studios are quietly profiting from the phenomenon rather than shutting it down. Instead of enforcing copyright on these unauthorized videos, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Pictures, and Paramount are claiming monetization rights, directing ad revenue from fake trailers for films like "Superman" and "Gladiator II" into studio coffers, according to a Deadline investigation published Friday.

YouTube channels like Screen Culture, which has amassed 1.4 billion views, merge official footage with AI-generated imagery to create convincing trailer mockups that frequently rank higher in search results than legitimate studio releases. "Monetizing unauthorized, unwanted, and subpar uses of human-centered IP is a race to the bottom," SAG-AFTRA told Deadline, condemning studios for profiting from content that exploits performers without permission.

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[nextTimeIsTheLast]

Inside youtube's world of fake videos.

Re:

[Z00L00K]

As long as I as a viewer know it's a work of fiction or entertainment and not serious I don't care.

It still beats the TV programs/shows with non-skippable ads. With YouTube you can at least run an adblocker to remain sane.

Re:

[dargaud]

Yup. There's been 'fake' music videos on YT for over a decade and many of them are way superior to the official ones (The Linkin Park one that disapeared after a decade, Two Steps From Hell's Secret Melody, etc...). If the official ones are labeled as such and if the video creator and the music creator both get a cut, I'd think everyone's happy, no ?

Re:

[Brain-Fu]

I discovered the "fake movie trailer" problem on youtube long ago. I just stopped going there to watch movie trailers at all. IMDB posts real ones, so I go there when I feel inclined.

But if people like watching fake movie trailers, I guess, more power to them.

Re:

[kellin]

My friends are stupid. So often people post these things either believing, or wanting to believe they're real.. and I have to keep telling them its easy to check.. IMDB is the only reliable source.

Re:

[skam240]

There's a browser plugin called blocktube that lets you block whole channels. Since it's nice to get trailers through a site I'm already using for other things a while ago I just blocked any channel that posted even one fake trailer. Problem's been solved for me for a while now.

Re:

[skam240]

*shrug* Haven't seen any fake trailers since I used it for that. That's also all I've ever used it for though so it's possible it's broken on me several times and YouTube just never happened to recommend any fake trailers to me.

Screen Culture is a plague

[DesScorp]

Outfits like those con artists are one of the things that ruins the Internet experience for people. They rob you of your time, and perhaps, even some simple joys. It shouldn't surprise me that the studios decided to partner with the pond scum rather than clean them up.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Funny the comment literally right underneath this one says "I've seen a number of these trailers and some are very entertaining.". Somehow I don't think everyone shares your view of being "robbed" of their time.

Some Are Pretty Good

[organgtool]

I've seen a number of these trailers and some are very entertaining. A good number of them portray modern IPs or old cartoons as live-action films in the style of the 1950s. What's really interesting are not just the aesthetics but also the mannerisms of the time are portrayed in a style consistent with actual content from that period. Young men especially seem to enjoy the classical beauty and seductive styles of the women.

Re:

[sconeu]

Yeah, I've seen this with Star Trek. Didn't realize they were AI; thought somebody actually put in the effort.

Oh well.

Re:

[organgtool]

Just because something was done with AI doesn't mean that it didn't require a lot of effort. I'm not sure how it works for video, but for music the "There I Ruined It" channel showed all of the effort it takes to create a song and it was a lot more than I expected. If I remember correctly, he basically has to record his own vocals and then have AI translate them to sound like the voice of the original singer. And that doesn't include the work to generate the backing tracks.

Re: Some Are Pretty Good

[NagrothAgain]

Most of them are pretty low effort, and the ones that attempt to mimic a time period are rife with anachronisms and other errors. Because they aren't putting a ton of effort into them in terms of accuracy... mostly they're just trying to manually correct obvious AI problems. The larger problem is people using AI to rip clips from original content creators, plaster an AI generated "person" on top, and post it up as a "reaction video." Or using AI to slightly tamper with clips from movies or shows to dodge a

I don't mind

[toxonix]

These "super panavision 70" spoofs are entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
IF they're making shit tons of money on youtube, I don't GAF. Who are they taking money from? It's not like anyone's making these by hand for any reason. They look weird and have huge limitations. They have to generate dozens of short clips to find one that isn't a total mess, then string them together with a generated narrator's voice. I would not want to work that way, I'd rather be chopping wood. But if they want to, f

Overdone

[battingly]

These 1950's style trailers were interesting and clever at first, but now they are being cranked out by the thousands every day and there's now an extreme sameness to them all that makes them just plain boring. Also, the clever styling of the early ones has been replaced in the past couple of months by a focus almost entirely on large breasts.

Duped

[too2late]

My boomer parents have been duped by fake trailers several times now. They have even gone to see a movie at the theater and then been confused when the movie was nothing like the trailer they saw. Now before you are inclined to make fun of "stupid boomers," keep in mind that some of these fake trailers are very believable and I have even had to go research myself after seeing some of them only to find out they are fake. If it turns out that movie studios are endorsing and profiting off these fake trailers, then they should be sued for bait-and-switch false advertising.

Re: Duped

[zawarski]

You need to get your parents off of YouTube. There is fake stuff way worse than trailers on there. Next thing you know, they will be injecting bleach to kill COVID cause they saw some idiot suggest it on YouTube.

Re: Duped

[Slashythenkilly]

I still prefer Silence of the Lambs as a romantic comedy

Instead of enforcing copyright on these unauth...

[usedtobestine]

That statement is incorrect. One of the benefits of copyright under Google is the monetisation transfer from the uploader to the copyright holder (or at least the account asserting copyright).

Just got bit by that...

[vanyel]

I just got bit by that, trying to find a trailer for Murderbot - it was clear that who or whatever created them had never actually read the books.