10 Movie Trailers That Totally Trolled Audiences

5. Serenity

Believe it or not, but once upon a time this Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway-starring thriller from Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Locke) was a buzzed-about Oscar contender.

With its release continually delayed before finally being pushed out of 2018's awards season, however, it became clear its Oscar prospects were up in smoke before anyone had seen it.

Nevertheless, the trailers sold Serenity as a self-consciously trashy murder-mystery thriller in the vein of, say, A Simple Favour, playing-up the involvement of an all-star cast who presumably wouldn't have signed on were it not a subversive take on familiar material.

But as it turns out, Serenity isn't just a deeply terrible film, it's one harbouring a totally demented plot twist.

The character of Patrick (Rafael Sayegh) is shown periodically tapping away at his computer throughout the film, despite being featured in none of the trailers.

In the third act, then, it's revealed that the entire McConaughey-Hathaway plot is actually a video game Patrick created in order to honour his dead father, who McConaughey's character is effectively an avatar for.

Nothing in the marketing suggested the film would be going in such a left-field direction, presumably because the studio knew that even hinting at this nutty B-plot would be a far riskier strategy than just focusing on the traditional sexy thriller elements.

Needless to say, we were all fooled, for better or worse. At least it wasn't boring, right?