8 Devious Ways Movie Posters Trick You Into Seeing Terrible Films
8. They'll Quote Anything
The practice of quoting reviews on posters comes with an obvious drawback; quotes only become available once the film has been released and the critics have had their opportunity to have their say. This naturally is a pain for studios as it doesn't nothing to help grow the hype building up to release. Which is why they go through all the pre-release coverage of their film and pick whatever statement suits.
And as most on-set features tend to be written on the optimistic side of things so as to keep things amicable between press and filmmakers, there's plenty to choose from. When The Expendables hit in 2010, it came adorned with the glowing praise from Empire, "The most awesome action cast ever assembled..." - which is pretty high praise from the massive movie magazine. That is until you realise it's a quote from an article that featured in the magazine months before release. Of course Stallone, Statham, Li etc. are an impressive action cast - the bloke down the pub could tell you that.
The same thing happened when YahooMovies called Man Of Steel "the most anticipated film of the year," which was deemed praise enough to get masthead appearance on the poster.