Every time a bell rings, a movie marketing department goes way too far.

If you read this space at all, you know that we love us some Superman Returns here at Burbanked. We’re very excited to see Bryan Singer’s old/new take on the material, and opening day can’t get here fast enough. Just click here or on the picture above to see a new international trailer, which includes some new footage and some we’ve seen already.

But are the Warner Bros. marketers going to ruin the whole damn thing before we get to see it?

Because take a look at that picture above. It represents a very cool moment in the movie with a punchline that is completely blown by this trailer! This is probably our most major gripe with today’s movie marketing: between the stills, trailers, YouTube talkshow clips and Internet-exclusive 10-minute previews, we tend to see entire scenes, blocks of scenes, or joke setup/execution/punchline sequences to the point where, when we’re sitting in the theater and a scene begins – we anticipate exactly how it’ll unfold and how it’ll end.

It’s a frustrating trend and it shows no sign of slowing down. Why not end the scene above with the gun discharging and the bullet blazing out – and we’re left not knowing what happens to Superman, the bullet, or anything? And maybe we’re actually motivated to see the FREAKING movie to find out what’s next?

Here endeth the rant. We just don’t want to see Superman Returns go all X-Men on us.