The many faces of Shutter Island

Shutter Island - the story of creepy things happening at a creepy mental hospital in creepy old times.

This isn't about how good or bad the movie is going to be. I have no idea. I have some anticipation because Scorsese is directing it; I have some trepidation because if he weren't it would probably be a Lifetime special starring Michael Gross (which I would totally watch because Michael Gross is the bee's knees).

No, I ask you to simply take a look at the trailer above. After that, follow me...



Sufficiently creepy, giving away 3/4ths of plot, blah blah blah. Now I ask you to turn your attention to this trailer for the movie which has just been recently released...



Notice any differences? Other than, you know the obvious different shots and scenes they chose to include/omit.

I'm particularly interested in the Mark Ruffalo content between these two trailers. The first one? He's in it for oh let's say about half. Literally. After 1:10, there's nary a shot of him.

In the second one however, he's in it considerably more. Even during the climactic action scenes that make up the last third of the trailer. What does this lead me to believe? That Mark Ruffalo dies early in this, but that someone decided the first trailer kinda gave that away. Along with pretty much the rest of the movie. But it's interesting to see the subtle differences in trailers made for the same movie. Was there a focus group? Were there complaints? Stuff like this fascinates me. And yes, I understand that makes me an incredible dork.

In the end, does it matter? I doubt it. In fact, I doubt more than a few people even noticed. Me, I happen to enjoy Mr. Ruffalo's work, and maybe that's why I did. I also have seen a number of formulaic thrillers and can pretty much guess how it's all going to go down as well. Now, I've been told this movie is based on a book (which I haven't read) and I obviously haven't seen the movie, so I could still be completely wrong on my prediction.

But I doubt it.

And for you Ruffalo fans out there, mad that he might not have too much screen time? Well, we always have this one...