10 Creative Ways Movies Got You To See Them

We all know the tragedy and redemption of Fight Club - David Fincher's finest feature got caught up in a misleading marketing campaign that damaged its cinematic run, only for it to make good on home video, many times over - but the how and the why are not quite as simple, because on one hand the marketing campaign was actually a success.  

The big problem with Fight Club is that whoever had been put in charge of the marketing didn't get it, and given Fox were in charge of distribution, this should come as no surprise. The team that put together the ad spots, trailers and posters saw the movie as a kind of run-of-the-mill film about an underground fighting ring (perhaps without even having seen the movie at all), and angled everything in this direction.

The problem is, it worked; the film scored this target audience. It attracted the combat sport, lads mag and football hooligan contingents, who believed they were going to watch a film about a couple of dudes throwing back beers and getting lairy, and instead were faced with a complex auteur flick that blends innovative cinematography with career-best performances, homo-erotic undertones and overt social commentary. But, by taking this approach, the many hundreds of millions of people that this movie was really made for - everyone from serious film buffs to fans of original author Chuck Palahniuk's work - were alienated, leaving the film to recover at home.