8 Times Audiences Were Blamed For Movies That Failed

8. Aviron Pictures Sent Serenity Out To Die, Because They Thought People Would Hate It

Released in January 2019, Serenity is one of the most bizarre movies of the last couple of years - and we're not even talking about its crazy plot.

It stars the Oscar-winning duo of Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, and yet, barely anybody knew it was coming out, and the majority of moviegoers probably don't know that it exists, even to this day. So why was a movie with such a high-profile cast launched with such a whimper? Well, because distributor Aviron knew that audiences wouldn't like it, so they didn't bother putting in any effort.

Reportedly, Hathaway and McConaughey worked with Aviron to map out the movie's promotional plan, which included television advertisements, as well as talk show appearances for the actors. However, Aviron didn't meet those expectations, since they barely advertised the film at all.

As a result, the movie flopped, failing to claw back its production budget and earning an abysmal score on Rotten Tomatoes to boot. Hathaway and McConaughey blamed this failure on the movie's lack of exposure, but Aviron thinks that the actual reason for the negative response is that audiences were always going to hate it, meaning that nobody would buy any tickets no matter how many ads they ran.

In a statement released to Deadline, the studio said that they loved the film (sure), but were consistently greeted with an underwhelming reception whenever they tested it. So, they "adjusted" (read: downsized) their marketing plan accordingly.

So basically, we were all blamed for a movie flopping, before the movie had even come out. Not fair.