36 Movies That Were Different Than How Their Trailers Portrayed Them

When we're deciding what movie we want to go to, we look at the names behind the productions, ask our friends for their opinions, and, of course, watch the official trailers. In fact, the latter influences the decision three times more than any other source.

However, what you see is not always what you get. Recently, in a post on the subreddit r/movies, Redditor u/sonofwelk asked cinephiles to name the films that they think turned out to be completely different from their trailers, and people shared a lot of interesting examples, reminding us to stay wary of marketing when purchasing our next ticket.

#1

Downsizing

A modern comedy take on Honey I Shrunk the Kids?

No. A confusing climate change apocalypse movie.

Image credits: Hawkmek

#2

The trailer for Godzilla (2014) was about 50% Bryan Cranston, who was super-popular after Breaking Bad. You'd think he was actually the protagonist, but if you watch the movie, he's only got a few scenes.

Image credits: barriekansai

#3

*Hancock* isn’t a drunk superhero like it seems in the trailer he is a drunk Angel. It’s weird.

Image credits: Wiger_King

#4

Bridge to Terabithia.

The trailers implied that it was going to be a whimsical chuldrens fantasy similar to Narnia.

In reality it was a coming of age tale dealing with sudden death and loss

I read the book when I was a kid, so I was thrown off when I first saw the trailer. I thought they took Terabithia literally and made a movie about it. I am glad that I was wrong, as the movie is basically a shot for shot adaptation of the book, just set in the mid 2000s instead of the 70s

Image credits: ZombieJesus1987

#5

Not trailer but I remember the bus advertising for Slumdog Millionaire in the uk tagged it as “the feel good movie of the year”. Yeah that’s a no.

Image credits: Character-Ad3913

#6

How has nobody mentioned *Jarhead*?

The trailers made it out to be a Gulf War-era testosterone laced action romp. This was insane given the minimal amount of action shown in any of the trailers.

In reality, what we got was a deep character study on the futility and "shut up and wait" aspect of war. To be clear, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, especially during subsequent viewings once my expectations were fully tempered.

Similar things can be said about *Three Kings*, although trailers for that film leaned more into the comedy aspects of the film.

Image credits: shaoting

#7

2 I can think of

Drive trailers made it out to be a car chase centric thrill ride. In reality, all car scenes were shown in their entirety in the trailers.

Adventureland trailers promised a screwball raunchy comedy. In reality, it was a very good coming of age drama.

Image credits: MaximumOverfart

#8

Maleficent-was expecting a dark retelling of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty because of the title character being the villain of Sleeping Beauty. Instead gets a movie that completely misses the point of this character and why people love Maleficent by making her the good fairy.

Now don’t get me wrong I understand the messages of the movie and its allegories referenced the original story (not Disney’s original, but the other one where Talia wakes up giving birth to her twins) but I would forgive it if Angelina morphed into Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent hated Aurora because she wanted her dead because her parents didn’t invite her. Her discovering her powers and becoming the mistress of all evil would be a much better movie than a revenge-redemption story.

Image credits: schmittyfangirl

#9

Fight Club comes to mind. Obviously they wouldn’t give away the twist but the trailer made it look like just a bunch of guys who organized bar fights.

Image credits: brokeneckblues

#10

I’ll answer this for my late mother, who I went to see Thelma & Louise with because she thought it was a wacky female road trip adventure comedy from the commercials. Wrong.

Image credits: usarasa

#11

‘Nope’ - in a good way as it allows you to make some assumptions about the visual cues but whips several of them away when watching the movie.

Image credits: Navy_Rum

#12

It Comes At Night is the first film that comes to mind. It was marketed as a post apocalyptic horror thriller, but it’s actually a claustrophobic character study about paranoia. Still a great film, but it got a lot of hate because the trailer made it look like a completely different film.

Image credits: ethanwnelson

#13

Click, thought it was another Adam Sandler goofball comedy where he could control time…bawled my eyes out the last 20 minutes

Image credits: cofasians

#14

Stranger Than Fiction. The trailer included all of the comedy scenes from the movie and made it seem like it was a wacky story because it starred Will Ferrell. The movie is actually quite serious for the premise and Will Ferrell delivered a wonderful dramatic performance.

Image credits: jordanclock

#15

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

They made it look like a really cool rootin' tootin' cowboy shootin' adventure, when in reality it was a very slow-paced drama, and a character study on depression, paranoia, and obsession.

Turns out, that was just fine by me. It's one of my all time favorite movies, and I'd even go so far as to say it's a *perfect* movie.

Everything about it is just flawless, imo.
The casting, writing, acting, cinematography, the score (omg, the score...), it's just absolutely beautifully done.

Image credits: NihilisticPollyanna

#16

Halloween Ends. There is so much cut content in the trailers...

Image credits: Phyliinx

#17

Antebellum

The trailer manipulated movie footage to create the illusion of supernatural or sci fi elements. There was nothing like that in the actual movie.

For example the little girl in the hotel hallway was manipulated to look like a ghost in the trailer. It was actually just a normal little girl. The glitching airplane flying over the cotton field in the trailer indicated time travel or parallel universes, but it was just a normal airplane in present day. There was no glitching in the movie. It was a deliberate deceptive tactic.

Image credits: Dear-Bandicoot7087

#18

The Happening. Marketed as a horror/thriller, plot twist, it is a deadpan comedy hiding in plain sight.

Image credits: LittleBullBoy

#19

Sucker Punch

Image credits: DragonMSword

#20

The Grey. The trailers made it seem like "Taken..... WITH WOLVES!!"
Instead, bleak existential drama. Very strange experience.

Image credits: Penguininamansbody

#21

Kangaroo Jack

Image credits: _bieber_hole_69

#22

The Village. The trailer made it seem like a super natural creature flick. Turned out to be a period romance/ drama.


Once I got over not getting the movie in the trailer, I grew to love it. I think it’s one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever watched.

Image credits: Sekshual_Tyranosauce

#23

The trailer for 500 Days of Summer made it look much funnier and more light hearted

Image credits: Hipster_Communist

#24

Ad Astra looked like an exciting Sci fi movie, instead it was a boring Sci fi movie

Image credits: JasonBeorn

#25

Crimson Peak...I was really disappointed with this movie,the trailer made it look like a really cool ghost story but it has almost nothing to do with ghosts

#26

This is a prominent one from my childhood because it was a huge bait n switch: Snow Dogs.

The main trailer showed a bunch of talking huskies on a beach making fun of their musher (Played by Cuba Gooding Jr). To me (and my mom) it seemed like an amusing movie with talking dogs who clearly get up to hijinks.

Instead, Snow Dogs, while humorous, was about a Florida dentist's journey in discovering he'd been adopted after inheriting a team of sled dogs from a woman in Alaska. He travels to the small village of Tolketna to sort out the affair and learns about his mother, the previous owner of the dogs, and ends up falling in love with Alaska, the dogs, and the friendly local bartender.

Little me didn't actually really get the story all that well, but adult me appreciates it for what it is. I've got a fondness for it, even if it's a mediocre movie, because a) hits close to home: my mom was adopted too; b) it was filmed in Canada close to where I now live; and c) one of the main dogs was a border collie, and my best friend growing up was a border collie.

Image credits: optimisticollie

#27

OMG! Chasing Amy. Probably the best experience I've ever had in a movie theater.

Middle-aged women in pairs coming to see the cute rom-com with Ben Affleck treated to a Kevin Smith vulgarity festival. I laughed way harder at their reactions than at the movie itself.

#28

*Galaxy Quest* the trailer promoted it as a kids movie basically but in reality it’s the best Star Trek movie ever made

#29

Donnie Darko’s trailer looked like a horror movie.

Image credits: MoobyTheGoldenSock

#30

Mother! trailer sold me a creepy thriller and I got zero thriller, two thirds of a movie and one third of a Powerpoint presentation.

Image credits: JohnnyJayce

#31

George Miller's *Happy Feet* is my go-to example. Trailers were happy-go-lucky and cute. The film was that too. . .but also big and weird and sad and genuinely experimental, especially for a big-budget studio animated film. For some (like myself) it really worked. For others, it came off as confrontational and "too much for a children's film."

Having talked to people that worked on it, this was intentional because they had no idea how to market the movie's wildly varying tone, or it's darker sequences, or it's religious and Environmentalist subtexts, so they culled most of the stuff from the first thirty minutes and went with what was safest. Miller later said of the marketing (and I'm paraphrasing, it was a long time ago) that it was like the studio was "just trying to market a new flavor of Coke."

#32

Malignant was not what I went in expecting (for good).

Image credits: ChimpanzA_2_ChimpanZ

#33

[About Time](https://youtube.com/watch?v=u2PUMA6nFWk) made it seem like it's entirely a pure *get the girl* rom-com

Image credits: lysflatheaven

#34

Age of Ultron had the trailer like set in grim dark world with the heroes are getting shattered. The movies is all jokes and quips.

Image credits: cyclops274

#35

Nearly every horror movie I've watched in the last few years. Every trailer is exactly the same and never comes close to giving you an idea of what the movie is actually about. All you will get are b******t lines about how this is the scariest movie of the year and most of the audience walk away disappointed.

#36

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I think the trailer should most of the “action” and it was a lot slower paced in reality. A couple near us got up and walked out declaring it s**t as they walked out. I still enjoyed it