In a world where money rules and artists starve (long pause), one man’s voice has inspired hope and comforted millions for over 40 years. (Long pause.) But now (long pause), will Don LaFontaine move aside for a generation of innovators to redefine the movie trailer as we know it?

This year marks the 8th annual Golden Trailer Awards, a ceremony celebrating the unsettling mix of marketing and artistic aesthetics that distinguish movie previews. But, oddly enough, neither of these components accurately describes the earliest trailers. Previews once followed the movie, mere superfluous visual appendages that belied their advertising potential. The early 20th century saw trailers composed simply of the first reel of an upcoming film or a few scenes spliced together. In the ’60s, independent trailer houses took over the task of editing coming attractions and so the style, in the hands of many, changed.

In 1964, the preview for Dr. Strangelove introduced text, which was novel at the time but later became mundane. In fact, that and narration characterize what for so long has been considered the classic movie trailer. Then in 2002, The Comedian was advertised with a trailer that broke form and parodied the format. In the preview, a voice-over artist attempts to find the appropriate adage to describe the content of the film. Unable to do so, he lapses into well-worn movie trailer catchphrases, pioneered by Don LaFontaine himself.

When asked about the import of movie trailers, LaFontaine said, “There’s no questioning the fact that it’s an art form and completely indispensable. It’s become a very big part of the movie going experience. If you go to the theater, I’m sure you’ll find that a great majority of the audience is in their seats well before the lights come down, and the reason is that they want to see those trailers before the main feature.”

And there’s a reason for that; trailers are like orgasms: quick, but arguably the best part of a sometimes-prolonged event. Frank Thompson, author and film historian, said, “I think the trailer’s becoming more and more powerful … because it has to do a job today that movie trailers didn’t have to do 20 years ago before the big advent of the blockbuster where every movie has to be a big moneymaking machine.”

If previews present only the best aspects of a film (and why would they include the parts where the hero takes a bathroom break?), is that false advertising or the work of an extremely talented artist? Thompson said, “I have seen trailers that really make a movie look spectacularly good, when in fact the movie is somewhat less than spectacular.”

This was the case in summer 2006, when a B-movie flick called Snakes on a Plane generated big hype on the Internet prior to its release. In response to fan feedback, the studio added five days of re-shooting and commissioned renowned U.K. audio-visual film remixers Addictive TV to create trailers for the U.S. television networks.

Steven Kenny, an undergraduate film student at Chapman University and remixer of Citizen Kane: Tha Remix says, “Marketing campaigns like Snakes on a Plane are powerful because people are actually going out of their way to find funny videos to watch on the Internet, as opposed to passively taking in commercials in front of the TV.”

Some remixes, like the ones for Snakes on a Plane, are odes to the genre. But in the hands of a few, these video mash-ups can turn the primary marketing tool of a multi-billion dollar industry against itself. Thanks to organizations like Creative Commons, which uses flexible copyright laws to increase the amount of raw source material available to online users, amateurs can make their own trailers—often editing footage in such a way that a film’s meaning can be completely transformed.

Robert Ryang, video editor and remixer of Shining, which presents scary movie The Shining as a feel-good family film, says of previews: “I think a lot of people believe it’s the most reliable form of representing the movie, but if remixing trailers has shown anything, it’s shown how unreliable a trailer can be.” After his initial success, Ryang received many offers to repeat what he had done so well. But he was hesitant to become the Don LaFontaine of remixing.

Now, with Grindhouse set to be released in April, we get a glimpse of the future. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s new project formally embraces novel variations on the classic trailer. Directors Eli Roth and Edgar Wright will each compose a so-called “fake trailer” in honor of the double feature. Likewise, a contest conducted by the South By Southwest Film Festival encourages others to submit their own trailers for fictional Grindhouse-style movies.

“I think the future of movie trailers will be viral video advertising on the Internet,” said Kenny, “The mainstream media is just beginning to recognize the power of sites like YouTube that allow anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection to introduce themselves and their work to the world.”