Why King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword Flopped So Hard

6. An Inconsistent Marketing Campaign

Warner Bros. has proven with the DC Extended Universe that if they don't know how to market a movie tonally, they'll just throw everything at audiences and hope something sticks.

The Warner Bros. marketing formula consists of releasing a serious, somber trailer first, and then following up with a funnier one to try and cast the widest possible net over potential audiences, even if away from the allure of iconic superheroes, it's a pretty damn risky strategy.

King Arthur's first trailer made it look mind-numbingly bland and generic, while the second trailer touted a much more fun tone, so which one was it? Audiences didn't know what to believe, and so stayed away.

Casual audiences may not necessarily use phrases like "tonal dissonance" to describe what they're experiencing, but they know that something feels off when a movie's marketing is pulling them in two different directions.