10 Movie Trailers That Totally Trolled Audiences

8. Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 is one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's most divisive films, and that's in large part due to the manner in which the movie was marketed.

The trailers for the threequel promised a darker, grittier movie than the prior two Iron Man films, focusing on Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and his wrecked Iron Man suit banished in the wintry wilderness after having his homestead destroyed by the unstoppable terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).

The trailers emphasised Kingsley's eerie performance as the shadowy, impossibly prepared antagonist, and seemed to be providing a welcome update to the Mandarin's rather stereotypical portrayal in the comics.

Then the film came out, and hoo-boy, did audiences feel duped or what?

For starters, Iron Man 3's tone is not in any way the Christopher Nolan-esque dirge the trailers painted it as: Shane Black brings his usual witty repartee to the table and in turn delivers one of the most quirkily funny films in the entire MCU.

But what really trolled fans was the Mandarin bait-and-switch, with the film eventually revealing that Kingsley's character is nothing more than a paid stooge to distract attention away from the "real" Mandarin, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce).

On one hand, it's a troll-job that cleverly plays into one of the main themes of the movie - manipulating the population through mass consumption media - but it's also the one major MCU trailer switcharoo that actually left many fans ticked off.

While the MCU has a habit of digitally altering trailers to throw fans off, it's almost always in the stead of a worthwhile surprise. But in the case of the Mandarin, it was a gotcha that upset and irritated at least as many as it amused.