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"Dangerous" Teaser

Date range of October 1991 release assessed by the fact that the teaser was “played in more than 3,000 theaters over the past month [October 1991]” (“Los Angeles Times”) (archived)

David Lynch, director, New York Times (June 13, 2018) (archived)

NY Times: In 1991, Lynch directed a 30-second teaser trailer for Michael Jackson’s album “Dangerous.” Opening with the very Lynchian image of fluttering red curtains, it concludes with Jackson’s head in a floating bubble. Jackson expressed great interest in the topic of Lynch’s 1980 film, “The Elephant Man.”

David Lynch: I’m in the living room in L.A. and my phone rings and there’s Michael Jackson on the phone, telling me he wants me to do some kind of trailer for his album “Dangerous.” I said, “I don’t know if I can do it; I don’t have any ideas for it,” but as soon as I hang up and started walking toward the hall, all these ideas came up. I called back and said, “I got some ideas,” and I worked on that with John Dykstra in his studio.

We built this miniature world that was a red room with a little teeny door, and in the room were these weird modern-shaped wooden trees and a mound with silver fluid that was going to erupt in flames and then reveal Michael Jackson’s face. It was stop-action, and it took a long time to do. For me, things don’t have to be so exact, but these people working on it plotted it out to the nth degree. The trees were lacquered red or black and the people who went in to move them wore white gloves and moved them along this precisely marked-out route.

That was one part of the thing. The other part was shooting Michael’s face, and we had a camera rig for that with a circle of lights that created this fantastic look of focus with no shadows. All Michael had to do was stand in one place for a few minutes, but he was in makeup for eight or ten hours. How could someone be in makeup for ten hours? It’s someone very critical about their looks. Finally he was ready and he came out and I met him for the first time and all he wanted to do was talk about the Elephant Man. He tried to buy the bones and the cloak and all his stuff from the museum and he asked me questions about it and was a really nice guy. Then he stood there and we shot it and one minute later he was done.

“Los Angeles Times” (November 10, 1991) (archived)

You've heard the hisses--filmgoers don't like being bombarded with ads when they go to the movies. But that hasn't stopped Sony Entertainment from running a 30-second teaser trailer for "Dangerous," the long-delayed new Michael Jackson album due Nov. 26 from Sony's Epic Records subsidiary.

Directed by David Lynch, the clip features a strange assortment of artsy effects, including a flaming volcano that produces a bubble with Michael Jackson's face inside. According to Sony Pictures Entertainment executive vice president Sid Ganis, the teaser has played in more than 3,000 theaters over the past month--and will soon be released to TV for airing on music-video outlets and "Entertainment Tonight"-type shows.

The clip doesn't feature any of Jackson's music or excerpts from his forthcoming videos. But it ends with a one-word reminder: Dangerous . So it's no wonder moviegoers have been hotly debating: Is it an ad? Or is it a trailer? Or a little bit of both?

"We monitored the reaction in the theaters and I don't think people perceived it as an advertisement," Ganis said. "That's what makes it unique. You really don't know what it is. It simply offers a series of striking images, including some of Michael Jackson. But it never indicates what it's promoting. It could be a book, a movie or an album."

According to Ganis, the clip was largely geared toward raising awareness, much like a teaser trailer, which studios air months before a movie's release, often with specially shot images created solely for the trailer. "To promote a product today, you've got to stretch--and we feel this really stretches," said Ganis, who would not reveal how much the clip cost. "We felt it was a great way to say to audiences that something was happening with Michael Jackson--and to lay the groundwork for a more specific promotional campaign."

An informal Calendar survey found moviegoers evenly split. Some were intrigued by the clip, others baffled, others irritated. But if nothing else, the Jackson teaser offers an early glimpse of what Ganis says will be an ambitious "synergy" campaign by Sony to use its corporate clout to cross-promote Sony products. The clip, which plugs Jackson, often played in front of such Sony-financed movies as "The Fisher King." And while it aired in several independent theater chains, it played in all of the Sony-owned Loews Theatre chain's 800-plus screens. Many of the clip's images were produced using Sony high-definition TV techniques.

"There was a time when our companies were just distant relatives," Ganis said. "Now we're cousins. And we're heading for brotherliness. You're going to see a lot more of this in the future."