10 Recent Movie Trailers That LIED
These movie trailers lied to you, for better or worse.
The single, elemental goal of movie marketing is to get your butt in a seat to watch a film no matter what, and while there are legal limits to how studios can sell their products, they can nevertheless misrepresent a movie, even basically lie, if they think it might benefit them.
This is nothing new in the world of movie trailers of course - as long as they've existed they've emphasised and downplayed elements to benefit the bottom line, and in recent times, these trailers are the most egregious examples.
Perhaps they lied about a character's screen time, played up aspects of the story that were ultimately more subdued, or just sold audiences a different movie than the one they actually got.
Now, there are certainly examples on this list where the lie was worth it, because it misled viewers in a smart way and gave them something way more interesting as a result.
But more often than not, trailer will try to conceal anything that might be even remotely contentious, as can and inevitably will disappoint some when they watch the movie for themselves...
10. Taskmaster's Role - Thunderbolts*
Now to be fair, eagle-eyed Marvel fans were definitely suspicious about the rather subdued role of Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) in the trailers for Thunderbolts*, namely that she wasn't present in any of the group shots alongside her co-stars.
However, the trailers still namedropped Taskmaster as a core member of the group, and so it was assumed by most that she would simply be the first casualty.
But as it turns out, Taskmaster dies just 20 minutes into the film, before the titular group has actually been formed.
During the anti-heroes' initial meeting at the O.X.E. facility, Taskmaster is swiftly shot in the head by Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) following a brief battle, bringing the character's screen time to a grand total of less than two minutes.
Considering that Taskmaster was not only named on-screen in trailers but also featured prominently on all of Thunderbolts*' posters, it's understandable that fans were pretty miffed about this, especially after she got such a short shrift in the Black Widow movie.