Noooo… there’s a really horrible trailer they are running on the more female friendly channels. It makes it look like a straight 20s romantic comedy… and is pretty light on the comedy. It’s going to eff over the movie… and it’s sad because the movie is quite good.
GO SEE SCOTT PILGRIM!
I don’t see how the real trailer would make the movie any more popular on the female friendly channels. I’m looking forward to seeing it but if they don’t play up the “romantic teen comedy” angle i don’t see a single chick showing up.
Why do they make misleading trailers, anyway? They miss the people who would’ve enjoyed the film in it’s own right, and the people they tricked into seeing the movie will spread bad word of mouth. I guess the hope is that the number of people tricked before word gets out more than makes up for the missed audience?
That’s what I assume. Up until recently a studio could get in a really good weekend before everyone realizes something’s amiss with the movie.
Now, with the prevalence of facebook and twitter word of mouth is spreading a lot faster.
Women don’t only like romcoms, you know.
But videogamey action movies aren’t really at the top of their list.
Twenty eight year old female here, and I’m totally going to see Scott Pilgrim. It’s not going to be anywhere near as cool or complex as the books, but it at least looks to be a decent highlights reel.
My submissions for stupid trailers are Fight Club and Moulin Rouge. The Fight Club trailers made the movie look like a stupid brawling action movie, while the Moulin Rouge trailer never once showed anyone singing.
I’d heard of and read the novel Bridge to Terabithia. Had no idea it wasn’t that well known. Though I guess it’s all relative. I see people talking casually about Terry Pratchett and Robert Heinlein on these boards and these are things that I find personally find to be fairly obscure.
Fight Club was a pretty different movie than the trailer promised but I liked it better than I thought I would. So it doesn’t really fall into this category.
Based on what I’d read about the movie Bug, I thought it would be straight up horror when it was really a couple of people who thought they had parasites. Wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.
You watched E.T. and saw no scary aliens? Are you sure you saw the same movie I did?! :eek:
Wait… a wizened little gnome from another planet… that not only tugs at our heartstrings but is MEANT to tug at our heartstrings… that eats Reese’s Pieces… and that’s all Spielbergly sweet… and so ugly that it’s supposed to be cute?
How is that not terrifying?
It didn’t ruin the movie for me, but the previews of Splice make it look like a Species knockoff, with a lot of the monster getting loose and racking up a high body count. That’s really misleading because:
There are only three human deaths the whole movie, and it’s really an updated retelling of Frankenstein, focusing on the creator rejecting her creature.
It all depends on the woman. I’m many more times likely to go to the theatre to see a videogamey action movie than I am a romance.
I just saw Shutter Island and I think that one counts.
Not really for being misleading, though. It was pretty obvious from the trailer what the ‘twist’ was going to be. Watching the film, there were questions raised which kept it interesting, but there wasn’t a whole lot of suspense. I’m pretty sure it’s not some subtle double-fake either, but put together sloppily enough to be vague (purposely, probably, but I don’t know) . In that case the trailer made the film less fun to watch. I don’t think it would have been hard to catch the twist, but at least it might have been more fun to guess.
Not a trailer, per se, but the Netflix description of The Japanese Wife was utterly wrong. We watched the movie continually waiting for when things would get better since the blurb stated that
he actually moves to Japan at some point. In fact it implies his adjustment to that life is the bulk of the movie. Instead he does die, and they never meet.
Can’t believe I’m the first person to say Event Horizon.
Hooray! A science fiction movie! They must find some sort of weird aliens out there or something!
I was seventeen and I loved Star Trek and I’d skipped school to see the rerelease of Star Wars. I was a nerd. I liked sci fi movies. I thought that was what I was going to see, not Lovecraftian horror. Not that there’s anything WRONG with Lovecraftian horror, except when you’re seventeen and you’re expecting something a little more along the lines of Close Encounters. I was huddled against the back of the chair begging the friend I’d gone to the movies with to just leave with me. She kept calling me a wuss. I wanted to throw up. 
The first one that came to mind for me is Misery. It looked like a nice romping comedy…well, it was directed by Rob Reiner!
Best wishes,
hh
Yup - there are quite a few women who would go to see a video-gamey action movie. Enough that you might as well give them an honest ad rather than have word of mouth put everyone off seeing the movie because its trailers lied.
You’ve reminded me of another one: the recent Sweeny Todd had no songs in its trailers and no mention that it was a musical. My GF loathes musicals, and was really pissed that she’d paid 7 quid to sit through one that wasn’t even very good.
I’m not sure about Heinlein, but Pratchett is one of the biggest-selling authors in history, and critically-acclaimed too - there’s is no possible way he can be considered ‘obscure.’
I don’t know what went wrong with the movie, but The Shining looked fantastic from the previews.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now I think I’ll read the thread before posting repeats
Wait, what? That’s what it’s really about? This is exactly what I was talking about! I would’ve seen that, but I was led to believe it was just a Species knockoff by the trailer so I passed.
A number of the musicals made in the past decade have misleading trailers like this. Moulin Rouge has already been mentioned, but the trailer for Chicago also made it look like the singing would be limited to a nightclub scene or two. Of course Chicago was based on the well-known stage musical so many viewers probably guessed it would be a musical, but if you’d never heard of it before the trailer wouldn’t have given you much of a hint.
I think to some extent the studios are still afraid people consider musicals a played-out genre and want to play down the musical element in the marketing.
Although he’d better known here now than he used to be, Terry Pratchett still isn’t all that famous in the US. His Wiki article indicates he’s had trouble with his American publishers, although it doesn’t provide any details. I can tell from my bookshelf that he’s had at least two different US publishers though, and he may have suffered from poor marketing here.
As mentioned upthread, Pan’s Labyrinth. Thing was, all of us were expecting a darker fantasy, like Tim Burton style, but not quite that dark. And violent. And horrific. And traumatizing.
I never saw the trailer for The English Patient, I was about 9 when it came out. I always had this vague idea that it was a dramatic romance. I mean, yes drama, but not crying my eyes out tragedy drama. To compare it to another Ralph Fiennes movie, I was thinking something like The White Countess.
Does anyone remember the entirely forgettable Primeval? The trailer was about the world’s worst serial killer. The film was about a crocodile.