Movie junket

The movie junket is a common practice in movie marketing. The studio that produces the movie (or its marketing partner) invites several journalists/entertainment writers to see a movie before it's released, then gives them the opportunity to interview its stars. The studio will sometimes pay for the trip.

Although this is not always explicitly mentioned, the journalist is usually expected to give favorable press to the movie when he comes back home. A negative review is likely to refrain the studio from inviting the journalist to more junkets.

Movie junkets are considered by some as a kind of practice where journalism and marketing? merge to a dangerous point.

Insider comments on the process can be found [here] and [there]