(Updated December 20, 12:30 a.m. ET: IMAX has pulled the video from its channel.)
You’ve probably already seen the trailer for Tom Cruise’s next summer blockbuster, “The Mummy.” But you probably haven’t seen that trailer with most of the audio stripped out leaving little more than an incredibly funny cacophony of screams.
But now you can watch exactly that, thanks to a botched version that was uploaded to the IMAX YouTube channel last week. There’s no plane engine noises, no explosions, no air rushing by. It’s just plenty of grunts and screams. And it’s beautiful. A work of art, even. IMAX did remove the trailer from its channel late Monday night, but not before it had been posted by others over the internet. Which is also funny, because the trailer had been up in that state for almost a week before anybody seemed to notice it.
This weird goof-up is pretty illuminating, and a clear reminder that making movie trailers is so hard. You have to take a bunch of random scenes from a movie that’s anywhere between 90 minutes and three hours long and cut basically a micromovie, putting together an original audio mix and everything.
And you never really get credit for your work because nobody cares who put the trailer together. Not that it was the trailer people’s fault for this “Mummy” IMAX trailer being like this — the correct version is out there as well. You can check that out here for comparison if you’re so inclined.
The shame, of course, is that when “The Mummy” hits theaters on June 9, 2017, you won’t be able to watch it with an audio mix like the one in this trailer.
It’s probably for the best — the joke might wear a bit thin over the course of two hours. For now, though, we can all bask in this much-needed piece of unintentional comic relief.