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Always read the small print.
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00:00In an industry as financially driven as the movie business, the higher-ups have no shame
00:05in selling a lie to the general public in order to get our money. And the real shame is that we
00:10just keep on falling for it. So with that in mind, I am Gareth, this is WhatCulture and here are 10
00:15movies that sold you a lie. Number 10, Drive. A woman sued because the trailer had promised
00:22Fast and Furious action. Somebody actually sued over this one. A Michigan woman filed a lawsuit
00:27against distributor Film District and the theatre where she saw Drive after feeling that she had
00:32been misled by a trailer that promised Fast and Furious-esque action, not the stripped-down
00:38modern noir that director Nicholas Winding Refn had created. Her demands? A refund for the cost of
00:43the ticket. Only in America. Now to be fair, Drive's trailers definitely made it look a lot more like
00:48a standard Hollywood action thriller, none the graphically violent, stylised and visually driven
00:54blend of arthouse and populist filmmaking that it actually was. And while many people may have
00:59felt that they'd been sold an entirely different movie by the time they'd parted with their cash
01:03and sat down in the theatre, at least they still got to see one of the best films of 2011, eh?
01:08Take what you can get. Now I've got a question for you, which movie did you feel sold you a lie?
01:13You let me know in the comments section down below. Now back to the video.
01:17Number 9, Crimson Peak. It was more gothic romance than creepy horror.
01:21The horror genre is one of the most profitable in the entire industry. The low financial risk
01:27involved for the studios, coupled with the high financial reward that comes with the audience's
01:31continued love of having the absolute crap scared out of them, has made horror a consistent slam dunk
01:37at the box office. Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak turned out to be a commercial disappointment,
01:42however, earning just $74.7 million worldwide against a $55 million budget. Why? Well, because it most
01:50definitely was not a horror movie, despite the marketing campaign insisting otherwise,
01:55and left many casual horror fans rather disappointed as a result. Seemingly, the only person telling
02:00people that Crimson Peak wasn't a straight-up scary movie was del Toro himself. The trailers were all
02:06based around the spooky locations and jump scares in an attempt to draw in the horror crowd, when in
02:12reality the movie was actually a gothic romance with supernatural elements. They relied much more
02:17heavily on character and atmosphere than things going bump in the night.
02:22Number 8, Mission Impossible 2, Anthony Hopkins is only a minor character.
02:26Mission Impossible 2 is very much a product of its time. Watching the movie now is like peering into a
02:32turn-of-the-millenium time capsule. Tom Cruise, with the floppiest of floppy hair, riding a motorcycle,
02:37wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket, performing martial arts in slow motion while Limp Bizkit blares in the
02:43background. It was a strange time for the action movie. From watching the trailers, you could be
02:47forgiven for assuming that Anthony Hopkins plays a key role in the story, as he featured prominently
02:53in the marketing, dishing out wizened exposition to super-spy Ethan Hunt. Except that really wasn't the
02:59case at all. Even though he had more dialogue in the movie's promo spots than just about anybody else,
03:05the Veteran Academy Award winner barely factors into the narrative at all, with his role being that
03:10of the guy who randomly turns up to advance the plot, and not much else really. Stranger still,
03:15Hopkins isn't even listed in the credits. If they were attempting to keep his role under wraps until
03:20the movie came out, then the person who cut the trailers together did not get the memo, did they?
03:25Number 7, World's Greatest Dad, It's Very, Very Dark
03:29Arguably Robin Williams' last great performance, the premise of World's Greatest Dad didn't exactly
03:35make it an easy sell to casual audiences. I mean, how the hell was the studio supposed to market a
03:40satirical black comedy about a failed writer who stages his son's accidental death from
03:45autoerotic asphyxiation as a suicide, before penning a fake journal allegedly written by the
03:51recently deceased, that finally gets him the recognition for his writing talents that he
03:55had always craved? Simple, they sold the movie as something else entirely. From the music to the
04:00jokes, all of the advertising for World's Greatest Dad comes across as your standard quirky indie
04:05comedy, with no mention whatsoever of the potentially controversial subject matter.
04:10People drawn in by the presence of Williams and the promise of a whimsical tale of self-discovery
04:14would be in for a huge shock when they discovered just how dark and risky Bobcat Goldthwaites' movie
04:20really was. Number 6, Observe and Report, Is Not a Judd Apatow Style Comedy
04:26In 2009, just three months after Paul Blatt, Mall Cop had inexplicably earned $183.3 million
04:34at the box office, and with Judd Apatow's brand of comedy at the peak of its popularity,
04:39Seth Rogen starred in the vaguely similar Observe and Report. With Rogen in the lead and comedy
04:45stalwart Anna Faris, Aziz Ansari, Patton Oswalt and Danny McBride lending support, it seemed like
04:51another cut and paste entry in the lovable loser gets the girl and betters himself in the process
04:56subgenre. Or at least that's what the trailers would have you believe, with their reliance
05:00on quippy banter and Rogen's improv-heavy style. In reality, Observe and Report was much darker
05:06than the average studio comedy, and Rogen's character was a lot closer to Travis Bickle
05:10than Paul Blatt. Fans of the actor's usually genial output must have been shocked to discover
05:16that he was not playing his usual stoner dude character, but instead a bipolar, drug-addled
05:22psychopath of sorts. Yep, did not see that coming. Thank you very much for checking out
05:25this video today, my friend, and if you are enjoying what you're watching, then hit that
05:29subscribe button down below, and you'll get more of this WhatCulture stuff in your life.
05:33Number 5. After Earth is not a Will Smith blockbuster from an unknown director.
05:39After Earth is a prime example of what happens when a movie star lets their ego run wild.
05:44Based on a story by Will Smith, produced by his Overbrook Entertainment Company and co-starring
05:49his son, Jaden, the original pitch was a contemporary father-son survival tale, before the former
05:55fresh prince decided to have it set 1,000 years in the future instead, upping the budget to
06:00$150 million in the process. Both the trailers and posters made the project look like a two-hander
06:06when in reality, Smith Sr., one of the most charismatic actors on the planet, spends most
06:11of it sitting on his ass, doing nothing but spout tedious exposition in one of the worst
06:16performances of his career, while rampant nepotism allows the charisma-free and rather wooden
06:21Jaden to anchor the whole damn movie. To cap off the campaign of misdirection, the man behind the
06:27camera was none other than M. Night Shyamalan, whose name had lost so much pulling power after a string
06:32of duds that it was only mentioned during the movie's end credits. Shyamalan has since gone on
06:37to rehabilitate his career, of course, and Smith Sr. also appears to be making a bit of a big-screen
06:42comeback after his Oscars controversy, but Jaden has only made a few other appearances on the movie
06:47screen ever since.
06:494. The Grey – Liam Neeson does not fight wolves
06:52The Grey might just be Joe Carnahan's best ever movie, a tense and gripping, character-driven
06:58tale of man versus nature, with a surprising philosophical slant, supported by incredibly
07:04atmospheric cinematography and a solid ensemble cast, led by one of Liam Neeson's best performances
07:10in years. However, by leaning way too heavily into Neeson's reinvention as a bankable action
07:16hero, the marketing missold the movie to many people as a much simpler action-heavy survival
07:21thriller, especially as every trailer ended with the money shot of Neeson taping broken
07:26glass to his fists and charging headlong into battle with a damn wolf.
07:31Now, it is still a great movie without a doubt, but many people were left disappointed when they
07:36discovered that the main hook of the marketing actually turned out to be the ending.
07:40When the screen cut to black just as the final battle was about to begin, there were more
07:44than a few audible cries of what the F in theatres all around the world, and you can't really
07:50blame them.
07:513. Hercules – The Twelve Labors Are Just a Myth
07:54On paper, it seemed like a match made in heaven, this. Dwayne Johnson, a man so much larger than
08:00life in both personality and stature, playing the demigod son of Zeus in an action-packed
08:05fantasy epic that would see him tackle the Twelve Labors, and kick a hell of a lot of
08:10mythical ass in the process.
08:12Naturally, this led to a great deal of disappointment when the movie came out, and all of the best
08:17shots in the trailer of Hercules scrapping with the Nemean Lion, Linnaean Hydra and Arimanthian
08:22Boar were all just part of a first act montage. Not only that, but it turned out that in
08:27the context of the movie, the Twelve Labors were total BS myths, perpetuated by Hercules'
08:33nephew to exaggerate his legend.
08:35Talk about a damn cop-out.
08:37Instead, Brett Ratner's fantasy-tinged historical actioner follows a tedious politically motivated
08:42plot, populated with one-dimensional cliches that pretend to be actual characters. All while
08:47Johnson does his best to elevate the material with his almost bulletproof natural charisma,
08:52despite sporting a lion's head as a hat and wearing armour that looks hilariously small
08:57on his gigantic frame. I mean, any clothes would, to be fair.
09:00Number 2. The Amazing Spider-Man It Forgets To Tell The Untold Story
09:05It was right there in giant letters on the movie's very first teaser poster. The Untold
09:11Story. In an attempt to differentiate itself from the Sam Raimi trilogy that had ended just
09:16five years previously, Mark Webb's reboot promised to put a fresh spin on Spider-Man.
09:21Only it didn't, did it? Instead, we saw the very much told story of high school student
09:26Peter Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider, getting a lecture about power and
09:31responsibility from his Uncle Ben, who is then tragically killed, before striking up a romantic
09:36relationship with a fellow student and battling a CGI villain. Where have I seen this one before?
09:42So what the hell happened to the Untold Story then? In short, well, Sony happened.
09:46The infamous 25-minute cut of the movie, cobbled together from the avalanche of marketing materials,
09:52features a huge amount of footage that was never used, with the version of the Amazing Spider-Man
09:57that hit theatres bearing all the hallmarks of studio interference. Peter just abandons the hunt
10:03for Uncle Ben's killer, a pivotal scene featuring Irfan Khan's character that was seen in some trailers
10:09was nowhere to be found, the lizard SWAT scene just kind of disappears, and the entire subplot
10:14surrounding Peter's genetic history and how it ties his parents and Kirk Connors together is just quietly
10:19swept under the rug despite being mentioned by several different characters in trailers that
10:24people can very easily view online. Number 1, Bridge to Terabithia. It is not the whimsical
10:30fantasy that you thought it was. For those unfamiliar with Katherine Patterson's novel,
10:35watching the big-screen adaptation of Bridge to Terabithia must have come as quite a shock to those
10:40drawn in by the marketing campaign. The trailer's dramatic music myriad of CGI creatures,
10:45and from Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media proclamation, deliberately played up the Narnia
10:51connection. But the movie is something else entirely. The marketing misrepresented the movie
10:55so badly that the director, whose name I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce so there it is on
11:00the screen, distanced himself from it altogether, saying we the filmmakers had nothing to do with that
11:05promotion. We don't really think that it's an appropriate way of selling the movie. If they are
11:10anticipating a Harry Potter movie, then we are in trouble. Co-writer and producer David Patterson,
11:15son of author Catherine, was even more succinct after seeing the first trailer. His reaction?
11:20Well, my mom is gonna hate it. Uh-oh. Despite being the main selling point of the movie,
11:25the fantasy land of Terabithia only takes up a small amount of screen time, and it's completely
11:30imaginary, serving only as a way for the two young leads to hide from the tribulations of daily life.
11:36It takes a bold and probably very cynical person to market a tear-jerking coming-of-age story about
11:41heartbreak, escapism, and loss as a family-friendly adventure. But that is exactly what they did in
11:48the end, and people fell for it.
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