10 Movie Trailers That Lied To You

Directors like to have close control over their movies, but all bets are off with the trailers: once your footage is in the hands of the marketing department, who knows what kind of movie will be promoted?

These 10 movies had trailers that not only misrepresented their finished product, they flat out lied to the people handing over their hard-earned cash…

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ missing episodes

All in all we were pretty happy with 'The Force Awakens’, but it was only on the fourth or maybe fifth viewing we realised several shots from the several trailers were missing in the finished film. For starters, the iconic shot of Kylo Ren unleashing his broadsaber in the forest was missing, as was Maz handing Leia her brother’s lightsaber.

- The Biggest Ever Oscar Travesties
- Grammatically Incorrect Movie Titles
- Most Scandalous Movie Sets

Several lines of dialogue were also absent: Rey saying “I’m no one” was not in the movie and neither was Snoke growling “the dark side… and the light”. It’s common practice for scenes and lines to get cut from the final film, but this is 'Star Wars’ were talking about here: fans will find something, anything to complain about.

'Predators’ forgets the plural

It’s one thing for the odd line or shot to be altered or even removed between trailer and finished film, but when your trailer’s money shot doesn’t feature then you’re wading into murky, Trading Standards-infested waters. Said money shot came at the climax of the trailer for Robert Rodriguez’s 'Predators’, when a surrendering Adrien Brody has one iconic Pred laser sight appear on his face… followed by another, and another, and another, until he was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was the perfect way to establish both threat and the wider context of the movie (this time there’s loads of the buggers!) so quite why the shot in the final cut only featured one laser sight we have no idea.

'Black Christmas’ fakes its own deaths

Dimension Film owners Harvey and Bob Weinstein clashed with 'Black Christmas’ director Glen Morgan several times over the content of the 2006 remake, particularly how gory it should be, but the producers got the last laugh when they had a trailer cut full of footage that didn’t even appear in Morgan’s movie. Shots included entire scenes that were absent from the film (the scene on the frozen pond, death by Christmas lights) and actors who were hired specifically to shoot footage for the trailers (up and comer Jillian Murray), playing characters that didn’t even technically exist. Glen Morgan disowned the film and later said “Bob Weinstein came in and urinated on it”.

Harry Potter And The Trailer Of Secrets

The 'Harry Potter’ trailers are famous for teasing scenes in promotional materials and then failing to follow up on the promises they made. 'Chamber Of Secrets’ made a big hoo-ha about Dobby the House Elf in the trailer then proceeded to basically ignore him for the entire film; 'Prisoner Of Azkaban’’s trailer had Harry saying lines that didn’t make it into the movie; 'The Half-Blood Prince’ teased the tagline “Magic will spread from their world into our own” when in actual fact no more than five minutes of the movie explores that avenue of thought. Actor David Thewlis cottoned on to the 'Harry Potter’ marketing trend and cut his own trailer for 'Half-Blood Prince’, repositioning the movie as a romantic teen comedy – it’s no less honest than some of the official ones.

'Spongebob Squarepants’ cuts Slash

You might think that in 2015, no one would really get excited about a movie cameo from former Guns 'N’ Roses axe man Slash, but you would be wrong. Trailers and clips for the new Spongebob movie, 'Sponge Out Of Water’, showed that, no, your eyes weren’t deceiving you: the music industry’s foremost hat-wearer was indeed riffing with Mr Squarepants. Any GNR fans who stopped by the Spongebob movies in cinemas, however, were left disappointed when the final cut had no room for Slash at all – not even a quick Slash.

And if you think we’re exaggerating when we talk about angry Spongebob/GNR fans? These are real quotes from a Roses forum thread on Slash’s no-show: “Blood boiling!”, “He is 100% not in the final film. No Slash? No thanks!” and “He doesn’t need an irrelevant cartoon to take over the world. F**k Spongebob for this rejection.”

'Kill Bill Vol. 2’ and the fight that never was

You’d think Quentin Tarantino would have found room for all the footage he’d shot when 'Kill Bill’ was split into two movies, but there were still scenes in the trailer for Volume 2 that ended up on the cutting room floor. We saw brief glimpses of a white-suited Bill squaring off against an unseen foe, but the proposed fight never made the cut: fans had to wait until the DVD release to see the sequence in full, which also included an entire segment featuring martial arts actor Michael Jai White. QT teased that the scene might make it back in for the long-awaited 'Whole Bloody Affair’ cut, but that was over a decade ago and there’s no sign of it coming any time soon.

'This Is Spinal Tap’: Hello, Cheeseland!

Sometimes a lack of available material can be used to a film’s advantage. When Rob Reiner cut his first trailer for his mock rockumentary 'This Is Spinal Tap’, he didn’t have a great selection of footage at his disposal, nor did he want give away away the movie’s best jokes. So, Reiner released a trailer devoid of any sign of Spinal Tap other than its title and instead introduced a short film about a Danish cheese festival. Accurate, no. Hilarious, yes. Look closely and you’ll see Michael McKean engaging in some “cheese blowing”.

'Jack Reacher’ fizzles out

Trailer editors beware: when cutting a promo for your film, you should know that any footage that misrepresents the movie in question could leave you financially viable to any legal cases. For example, one irate viewer of 'Jack Reacher’ in New Zealand was so incensed that the quarry explosion seen at 1:45 in the trailer was not in the movie, he claimed - and won - a refund for his £6 cinema ticket. So be warned, editors: your wages might be docked to a level which could severely affect the quality of sandwich you want to buy for lunch.

'The Amazing Spider-Man’ and the amazing no-show

Sony had work to do convincing audiences that a Spider-Man reboot was necessary, but they almost won us over with the film’s first teaser trailer: a spectacular first-person perspective of a quick swing over the New York City skyline. It was new, it was exhilarating, it was… not in the movie. It turns out the scene was just a proof of concept piece and there were never any plans to put audiences into the thick of the action as the trailer suggested. Maybe the next reboot will put the scene back in. Or the reboot after that.

Megan Fox’s missing Hex scene

There are two ways to make beds angry: 1) Take a beloved comic-book property and make a terrible movie out of it; 2) Promise a sex scene and then fail to deliver the goods. It stands to reason, then, that fans were apoplectic at the release of the atrocious 'Jonah Hex’, which not only bore little resemblance to the comics, but didn’t even have the decency to include the sex scene featuring Megan Fox’s prostitute character as teased in the trailers. To the internet, nerds: the people must learn of this injustice!

- Movie Couples That Hated Each Other
- How Films Bring Actors Back From The Dead
- Movie Scenes That Were Only In The Trailer

Image credits: Paramount/Warner Bros./YouTube