Have you ever watched a movie that you felt was totally mismarketed?

I watched Adventureland again the other day and it again reminded me just how terribly marketed this film truly was. The trailer makes it look like a laugh-a-minute film with the same humor as Superbad and no opportunity was missed to scream that it was from the same director as Superbad.

I believe that the movie performed horribly at the box office because of this. I love the movie but tons of people hate it because it was nothing like they expected (even though I loved it because it was not what I expected). Just a casual look at Amazon user reviews yields several thoughtless reviews containing "insightful" words such as boring, slow, sucked, not funny, etc. It's obvious from these user reviews that these people were the audience that was being marketed to and they did not enjoy it at all.

I think Adventureland is really underappreciated. Sure, it's nothing overly original, but the script is sharp and poignant. It kind of reminds me of Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming and Whit Stillman's films.

I'm done with my rant.

Do any movies come to your mind when you think of mismarketing?

*I meant to post this in the Movies thread.

I loved Adventureland.

I think a good, recent example of this was Splice. They sold it as horror flick, when it really wasn't. There were some horrific elements, sure. But when all of the trailers make it look like a killer monster is on the loose and then it doesn't go that way, people will be disappointed.

Funny People comes to mind. It was clearly a drama set in the world of stand-up comedy, but the marketing department played up Sandler and Apatow; hell, the title was ambiguously misleading!

Also, I think a lot of people were lured into seeing The Break-Up expecting the whole thing to lead to...a more conventional ending.

Not that it matters, but I enjoyed both of these movies; but I heard from quite a lot of people they felt cheated by both.

^
I forgot all about Funny People. That's a perfect example though.

Bridge to Terabithia.

Marketed like it's another Chronicles of Narnia with a bunch of CGI woodland creatures inhabiting a magical world the kids enter.
Anyone who's read the book in school knows that couldn't be farther from what it really is. So the trailer not only looked like a generic fantasy fest that probably wouldn't appeal to a lot of people anyway, and also angered fans of the book because they thought it was a complete departure from the source material.


Also, the Exorcism of Emily Rose.

The thing was advertised using exclusively footage from the exorcism and demon possesion scenes. Ends up it's a courtroom drama with some scenes of the exorcism spliced in.

I remember Striptease with Demi Moore being marketed as a drama at first. Then all of a sudden, every trailer that came out made it seem like a comedy.

IIRC, Ben Stiller's Reality Bites was marketed as a laugh a minute comedy.

The Village and Lady in the Water. Shyamalalaraama, oooh scary!

What was that latest Harrison Ford flick with Brendan Fraser? I saw two trailers with extremely different tones, so weird...

Transformers was marketed as giant robots doing battle. That's in there, I guess, but 90% of the movie is John Turturro chaperoning a couple obnoxious teenagers around.

I always got a kick about how they marketed Audrey Toutou's film HAPPENSTANCE on DVD over in Asia:

Fixed.

Extraordinary Measures. I remember that. The first trailer I saw for it was an intense, almost thriller style with Bredan Fraiser saying to Harrison Ford "I'll do anything to save my kids!"
Then the second trailer was very light with lots of shots of them laughing and smiling while inspirational music plays.

Really Weird.

My Girl. I worked at a movie theater when that came out. I had to deal with the wrath of angry parents when:


I told one parent it wasn't my fault they didn't do their homework. Of course, it was never mentioned anywhere about that ending.

Schindler's List was NOT the feelgood comedy of the decade

Must've been really stupid parents if they complained to you. What'd they think? You make movies and work in a movie theater on the side?

I saw that movie opening night, and the crowd (fed up with over-saturation of the actor in question) burst into applause -- quite the opposite of the emotional impact the filmmakers were looking for, I'm sure.

no, but Schindler's Fist made me feel good.

Agree with Adventureland and Funny People. I was misled and ended up hating both.

Great movie, but it is not horror. More of a psychological drama/thriller.

Not the original intent of this thread, but I remember walking out of Parenthood with a friend of mine and we were just laughing hysterically. People waiting in line to see Lockup were staring at us, so we said, "Man that Lockup was funny. Sylvester Stallone really had me cracking up." They all started looking freaked out and bewildered about what kind of movie they were going to see.

i thought Gran Torino was about a muscle car and not a crotchety old landscaper.

I don't know if that film was necessarily mis-marketed, but there was a lot less of Clint Eastwood breaking skulls and kicking ass then I thought there would be. As in, none.

And I believe you.... anyways Triangle was made out to be a horror when in reality its much more. Great flick!

Adventureland was exactly what I came in to say. A friend and I were just talking yesterday about how much we both loved that movie.

I actually really enjoyed The Break-Up for that exact reason.




Also, Donnie Darko looked like a teen horror flick from the posters, etc.