In Vijay Krishna Acharya’s Tashan, Bhaiyaji (Anil Kapoor) declares, “first impression is the last impression.” This very phrase has travelled across time, questioned, replaced, and often dismissed. Yet it survives in one space with near total authority: the trailer. It is the first and often the only conversation a project has with its audience. It is a perfect fusion of marketing instincts alongside storytelling sensibilities. At a moment when box office returns offer little assurance, tentpole films struggle to sustain runs, independent films fail to secure screens, and theatrical visibility itself feels uncertain, the work of those designing a trailer has grown heavier. The pressure no longer sits only with directors and producers; it spills into the editing room. Rajeev Chudasama, founder of MA+TH Entertainment, a content marketing agency that has worked upon promotional material for several major films and series, and most recently on Dhurandhar’s widely discussed trailer, puts it simply: “The first-day number is mostly determined from the trailer alone. That places the weight on us as well. Directors and producers keep reminding us that the trailer has to cut through everything else.”
What Made the Dhurandhar Trailer Break the Clutter
When the Dhurandhar trailer arrived last month, within hours, it became the centre of conversation: discussed, dissected, and divulged. Its opening-day figure of Rs 28 crore can be traced, in large measure, to that four-minute-and-eight-second cut. This is notable because such length rarely works in a trailer’s favour. Long trailers tend to test patience, often drawing ridicule rather than interest, (as seen with the 4.58-minute trailer of Singham Again). But filmmaker Aditya Dhar, (along with his brother in law Ojas Gautam, officially credited as the editor), and the team at MA+TH Entertainment, designed a promotional piece that found its way to the audience without spelling itself out.
Sahil Kajale, head of visual promotions at Warriors Touch, another leading agency involved in cutting trailers, spoke to SCREEN about why the trailer worked big time. “There is no fixed length for a trailer,” he said. “What matters is whether it holds attention. A one-minute trailer can feel exhausting, while a four-minute trailer can carry you through if the material allows it. That’s what Dhurandhar shows.” According to Kajale, the trailer’s impact came from how it resisted convention.
“It doesn’t follow the three-act structure we’re often asked to use. It gives no clear story. You don’t know the premise beyond the setting and the period. What you see are characters, introduced one after another, without clarity on how they relate to each other. In fact, you never see them share a moment on screen.” He adds then, “the most decisive break comes at the very end. Ranveer Singh appears only in the final minutes of the trailer. This runs against standard logic, where the lead is always placed early to anchor attention. Data often demands early revelation of your hero. Dhurandhar trailer defied that logic.”
The trailer of Dhurandhar broke several established norms, most definite being the revealing of the hero only in the final minute.
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Sound Is The Defining Factor
Kajale also points to sound as the element that often decides the fate of a trailer. “The audio you cut to can change the response to the same visuals,” he said. “We saw this with both the trailer and the first look of Dhurandhar. Whether it was the use of ‘Jogi’ in the first look, or the brief scratch of qawwali at the very end of the trailer, those choices made people stop and pay attention.” This, Kajale explained, is what he looks for when approaching any promotional unit. He cited the trailer of Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped, designed by his team, which relied almost entirely on sound, ambient noise, score, and effects. “It comes down to what you decide to cut with,” he said. “It could be a voice-over, a piece of music, or only sound effects. That choice determines how the film is going to be read.”
The point holds when one looks back at the trailer of Yash Chopra’s swan song, Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Edited by Mohit Sajnaney, a long-time in-house editor at Yash Raj Films, the trailer was built around the poem written by Aditya Chopra and narrated by Shah Rukh Khan. Sajnaney recalled the process simply. “Adi sir was clear that the entire trailer had to move to that narration. The task was to place the best moments within it. For me, cutting a trailer for a Yash Chopra romance was something I had hoped to do for years. When that poem came in, the direction was set, and it worked big time for us.”
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At times, sound becomes so central that it is created only for the trailer. Sajnaney pointed to War 2, where the trailer was structured around voiceovers by Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR, developed after discussions with Aditya Chopra and director Ayan Mukerji. Nilesh Kataria, creative director and trailer specialist at MA+TH Entertainment, shared a similar instance from earlier in his career. While cutting the trailer of Cocktail, he suggested using Honey Singh’s “Angrezi Beat.” “At that point, we were working with two songs, ‘Daaru Desi’ and ‘Tum Hi Ho Bandhu’, but they weren’t landing the way we needed. I tried ‘Angrezi Beat,’ and it changed the tone. It worked so well that the song became part of the film itself,” he said.
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World Building Versus Star Presentation
Having worked across a wide range of films at YRF, from Dibakar Banerjee’s Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar to Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan, Sajnaney sees the trailer as a response to genre, tone, and directorial intent. “Those factors decide how a trailer takes shape,” he said. “When you work on something like Dhoom 3, the audience wants to see Aamir Khan in a franchise built on slick action. The focus was to push that idea, while also holding back. You show enough, then save the rest for the theatre.”
The approach carried over to Pathaan. “This was Shah Rukh Khan’s comeback film. The aim was to build his presence through the trailer, while also establishing the world of the spy universe, its scale, its cast, its music.” Sajnaney contrasts this with a film like this year’s surprise success Saiyaara, whose teaser and trailer leaned away from star projection and towards setting. “The intent was to show the world, introduce two new faces, give a sense of the music, and not reveal the conflict.” That balance between what to reveal and what to withhold, he said, shifts with each project. “It changes from film to film. Some ideas are strong enough to pull people in on their own, as with Maneesh Sharma’s Fan. That trailer pretty much laid out the core and the different avatars you are going to see of SRK in the film. In other cases, the twist or the conflict carries the film, so you protect it. That was the case with the Saiyaara trailer.”
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Kajale extends this distinction between world-building and character-led narratives. “When we worked on Raman Raghav 2.0, the decision was to open with Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s monologue. It drew the audience within seconds. But when the film depends on visual design, you lean into the world. Take Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. The trailer followed a three-act structure, moving through the setting, the conflict, and the presentation of Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone.”
Kajale applies the same thinking to Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy. “That was a character-led cut. The focus was the journey, the interior state, and the world as seen through that character.” Chudasama returns to the larger question of process. “Trailer cutting is the hardest part,” he said. “There’s no fixed rule. Many voices come into the room, each with an opinion. In the end, it comes down to the instinct of either the director or the producer.” He paused before adding, “It isn’t only creativity though. There is science to it as well.”
The trailer of Dhurandhar broke several established norms, most definite being the revealing of the hero only in the final minute.
The trailer of Jab Tak Hai Jaan was edited to a poem narrated by Shah Rukh Khan and penned by Aditya Chopra.
Saiyaara trailer didn’t reveal the story of the film at all.
