I like the longer one much better and didn't find it unfocused. To me, the draw was that Brad Pitt is a new hire looking to put together a winning team with no money and this overweight misfit Jonah Hill (nice to see him in a suit and tie and doing something other than his usual schtick) comes up with some sort of mathematical system to put together a team based not on star players, but simply getting people on base. Brad gives him a chance and it works. The synergy between Jonah and Brad is apparent in the longer version but not in the shorter one, and that synergy was what drew me in. I feel that's the emotional, feel-good core of the story and it's missing from the shorter trailer. Another nice touch with the longer one is the comic relief moments, like players being moved to other positions, being told a position is not hard one second then told it's incredibly hard the next, that sort of thing. You see how tough the road is gonna be in the longer one, while the shorter one makes it look easy. "You can't do this!" "Guess what, we did it and it works!" is my takeaway from the shorter one, which makes the movie seems very predictable, very formulaic without the emotional Hill-Pitt core and a taste of the obstacles the scrappy players must face and overcome.

I'm reading these comments and I find that the analyses are really well thought out. Teddy's deserve special mention, but everyone that has contributed to these Moneyball threads are very observant and knowledgeable about story and marketing.

Anyone have an idea how big the trailer production industry is? Is it something that you need to break into, or is it sort of a fallback for people trying to get into the feature film industry? Seems like there might be some opportunity there.

I liked the short TV spot. Liked it when I saw it first and liked it more when I saw after the trailer.

I couldn't agree more that it's the visuals that need to to the talking more than the talk itself when it comes to spots.

The smaller one looks like a more personal story and conveys the desolateness of Brad Pitt's characters far greater than the longer one.

Would the interpretations be different if one had seen the TV spot before the trailer....?