Google seems to have data for virtually everything. What’s interesting about its list of the hottest trailers from this year is that a video game — Activision’s Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 — walloped anything out of Hollywood, taking the top two spots and four places out of the top 10. Sony and MGM’s James Bond film Skyfall held two spots. One TV show made the list, NBC’s Revolution. YouTube bases its rankings on how many times a clip was viewed, how long people stayed with it, and how many people found the video by searching for it instead of clicking on an ad. YouTube will discuss its findings and show the top trailers here. Now, here’s the ranking for the top trailers on YouTube in 2012:
1. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 – Activision “Surprise – Official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Live-Action Trailer”
2. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 – Activision ”Reveal Trailer – Official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2”
3. The Dark Knight Rises – Warner Brothers Pictures “The Dark Knight Rises – Official Trailer #3”
4. Skyfall – Sony Pictures “SKYFALL – Official Trailer”
5. Ted – Universal Pictures “Ted – Trailer”
6. Hunger Games – Lionsgate “The Hunger Games Theatrical Trailer #2”
7. Revolution – NBC “Revolution – Trailer”
8. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 – Activision ”Multiplayer Reveal Trailer – Official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Video”
9. Skyfall – Sony Pictures “SKYFALL – Official Teaser Trailer”
10. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 – Activision “Launch Trailer – Official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Video“


When Youtube crashes, you have my permission to hit refresh.
Gee, a pro-military project thumped all of Hollywood. What a shock.
Wasn’t so long ago Hollywood would make “pro-military” projects and make money hand over fist. At least until the Liberals took over. Now we’re supposed to be excited when a film breaks anywhere near 1/4 of what Hollywood films used to make.
I’m so glad video games didn’t drink Hollywood’s kool aid and kept going on making money.
Yeah well all I remember about this film was the DEADLY SHOOTING in Aurora. Oh yeah and I couldn’t understand BANE at ALL !!!!!!!
Hold up. The trailer for SMILEY has 22 MILLION VIEWS which would have made it #4 on the most viewed trailer list… but that film wasn’t released by a major studio, therefore, discarded. AND all it’s views were organic from the YouTube community and not bought and paid for like most of the other content which gets beefed up numbers via True View / Pre-roll ad buys. Just when independent content finds an audience, it isn’t given fair credit.
It’s not all about views:
“The rankings are based on the number of people who viewed the clip, the AMOUNT OF TIME THEY SPENT ON IT [emphasis mine], and whether they got to the video by searching for it or by clicking on an ad.”
So it doesn’t matter how many “views” there are on the view count, what matters how HOW MUCH people watched it.
…and yet my ‘Indiana Jones Rises’ mashup with the DKR trailer only has 45 hits. Guess I’m not good at making things go ‘viral’.
Oh well. Love DKR. Bane isn’t difficult to understand AT ALL in the home release. If anything, they must have boosted his voice for the Bluray/DVD release because he’s louder than anything else in the scenes he’s in.
I’m surprised The Hobbit isn’t on this list.
Doesn’t the Avengers trailer(s) have more views than some of these on the list