Before the Trailer We Thought: Extremely well received at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, “The Kings of Summer” (formerly titled “Toy’s House”) is said to herald the arrival of a fresh new comic voice in writer-director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. The coming-of-age tale was swiftly picked up by CBS Films out of the festival, emerging as one of the hot buys this year in Park City.
And Now? Following in the footsteps of what IFC Midnight did with their simple yet enticing trailer for “Room 237,” CBS Films has gone down the less-is-more route for their first promo for the Sundance smash — and the result is equally as effective. Like the “Room 237” trailer, all you get is an extended sequence, intercut with reviews from a slew of publications that shower praise upon the indie. While also wordless like the “Room 237” promo, this spot does feature a lot of wailing courtesy of a kid dancing and belting out what sounds like war cries on a water pipeline in the middle of a forest. He’s musically accompanied by two boys armed with large sticks, who drum onto the hollow structure.
In the film, the three (Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso and Moises Arias) star as a band of teenage friends who decide, in an ultimate act of independence, to spend their summer building a house in the woods and living off the land without the help of their parents (played by Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally and Alison Brie — all of whom don’t appear in the trailer).
See what all the hype is about when CBS Films opens the crowd-pleaser in select theaters on May 31st. In the meantime, watch the trailer below:
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
