The jaw-dropping rise of Hollywood's movie trailer complex

The movie business is large and lucrative. But the movie trailer business is becoming an industry in its own right.

A new report from The Los Angeles Times delves into this subset of Hollywood, and found that last year, movie studios collectively spent a jaw-dropping $3.16 billion on trailers and marketing alone. Just 15 years ago, only about a dozen companies were making movie trailers. But thanks to the growing popularity of trailer culture and innovations in technology, that number has ballooned to more than 100.

All that extra effort — and money — certainly hasn't been for naught. The unveiling of a new trailer for a popular franchise has increasingly become an event in itself, and more people than ever are logging hours on YouTube watching movie trailers. While you may think making a trailer requires a simple editing job, crafting the perfect 2-minute clip takes plenty of time and manpower:

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The hard work of movie-trailer studios is paying off: So far in 2015, we've collectively watched more than 35 million hours of trailers.