11 Flat Out Lies We Were Told Just To Sell A Movie (And We Stupidly Believed)

"We're going back to the source material". Yeah, of course you are...

By Alex Leadbeater /

Sony Pictures

Press junkets give directors and actors the chance to wax lyrical about how great whatever shlock their promoting is and play down the rabid speculation of a troubled shoot. Fortunately we all know to take what€™s taken here with some trepidation; it€™'s often written in the contract for these stars to be all smiley and happy about the project.

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With these wild claims and trailers being as misleading as ever the question could be raised how much of the Hollywood marketing machine is false advertising? There€™'s always those stories of people who sued distributors because Sweeney Todd was a musical or Let The Right One In was subtitled, but is there something serious here? Drive€™'s teaser promised a Fast And Furious style action movie and Only God Forgives€™ promised a thoughtful, well-shot film, and even though people whined a bit it€™'s sort of accepted as a fact you can never know fully what you€™'re getting At least sometimes it goes the other way; Up looked incredibly knockabout in previews compared to the sombre joy of the finished film.

But even a trailer'€™s biggest lie can't match the sort of things filmmakers come out with at a junket. Today I'm going to highlight eleven directors who told massive whoppers in the hope that it€™'d get you to watch their latest movie. The depressing thing? In some cases it actually worked.

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