What movies did you see that were misrepresented by the trailer?
I remember the ads for Porky’s on TV. It looked like it would be a riot. The only problem was (in my opinion), I’d seen all the real funny parts in the TV ads. The rest of the film was mediocre at best. I never bothered with the sequels.
Armageddon: The trailer showed pieces of meteors hitting famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, buildings in NYC, etc. Those scenes, which were in the 1st minutes of the film, were made solely for the trailers. It really did not represent what was going to happen in the film. A meteor was headed to earth, but don’t tell the public or they will panic. OH??? How do you explain the destruction of the Eiffel Tower to the public?
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The trailer shows Martin and Caine walking along a canal when Martin casually shoves an old lady into the water. While it did not misrepresent the content of the film, that scene was not in the movie.
The 1999 version of The Mummy, with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. The trailer made it look like a straight-up monster / thriller movie, and only hinted at the fact that it’s actually a very funny film.
I never wanted to see Fight Club because of the trailer, which was almost all… well, fighty. Okay, and a random airplane crash and a car crash (meh). Why would I want to watch sweaty male fisticuffs? And it seems much of the public assumed as I did, and stayed away like I did.
Until one of my students thrust it into my hands as we left for Christmas break and said “You HAVE to watch this. Trust me.” So glad he did.
ETA: The first rule of Ninja Club is… you get ninja’ed.
The American Ultra trailer made it look like a goofy stoner way in over his head type of movie like Pineapple Express but it was like 95% action movie, all the funny bits are in the trailer.
The Man who Loved Women was marketed as a slapstick comedy, showing the only slapstick scene in the movie, which actually was a serious movie about the nature of love.
That’s cool, I think that was actually the trailer I remembered and therefore didn’t have any interest in the film. It did not do well in theaters, but came out on DVD and got a word of mouth following.
Someone else mentioned in the “Movie wasn’t what I expected” thread that the trailers for Arachnophobia made it seem like a fun John Goodman comedy. I remember the same thing from when I was a kid, expecting it to be fun comedy based on the trailers, but I honestly found it kind of scary when I first saw it. I would have been 10 when it was released but I probably watched it on video at a friend’s house later. Many of my peers in school said they thought it was funny though, although I wonder if they were just trying to act “tough”.
I recall the trailer for Super depicting a comedy starring Dwight from The Office as a regular guy with no powers dressing up like a super hero.
The movie was much sadder and darker than the trailer made it out to be.
Bridge to Terabithia is a classic example of the misleading trailer where they packed all the CGI fantasy elements into the trailer to ride on interest in movies like The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. In reality, the fantasy elements only make up a very small portion of the film.
There was a 2008 Amy Adams film, Sunshine Cleaners, where Adams plays a woman who starts a business cleaning homes after deaths, suicides, murders, etc. The trailer I saw for it played it up as a comedy when, in reality, it was 90% drama about her relationship with her sister and father with a couple comedy scenes.
The trailer for The Bicentennial Man made it seem to be a comedy when it was a fairly serious film. I suspect that’s one of the reasons it didn’t do well at the box office.
When I saw the trailer for Cowboys & Aliens I was excited to see what I assumed would be one of the best movies of all time. Then I saw the movie. WTF?