Movie studios will do just about anything to get your money.
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00:00When looking forward to a film, everyone handles it a little differently. Some of us want to soak
00:04up all the anticipation by watching every second of footage that gets released, and some of us
00:08avoid the trailers as much as possible so we can go in completely clear of expectation. That being
00:13said, whether you head to the cinema or boot up a movie on your streaming service of choice,
00:17you can't avoid at least seeing some kind of marketing image. Over the years, many films have
00:22outright fibbed about their content to us in order to get us to part with our cash. Sometimes it's a
00:27sneaky little misdirection, and other times they get away with bold-faced lies. The film posters on
00:32this list made promises they couldn't keep, and you'll never get your money back because of it.
00:36I'm Sy for WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 movie posters that lied to your face.
00:4110. X-Men 3 The Last Stand
00:44Before the MCU kicked open the door for any combination of Marvel characters to grace our
00:48screens, we had the X-Men trilogy. Getting excited for a new X-Men film was kind of like waiting for
00:53a new Pokemon game to come out. What kind of new friends and enemies would we see this time?
00:57Each entry in the franchise included new mutants from the back catalogue of the comics,
01:01and The Last Stand was no different. Angel, with all of his boyish good looks and his luscious
01:06wings, was a big part of the marketing for the film, and he appears on every single poster,
01:10usually clad in the X-Men's leather uniform. It feels like Ben Foster probably only got to
01:15wear the outfit for one day, however, and that was for publicity shoots, as during the runtime
01:19of the film, Angel never dons the outfit. Promising a new member of the X-Men team on
01:23the poster does not reflect the movie's course, as Angel's story is pretty much its own thing
01:28entirely. Additionally, the poster also features Cyclops all suited up and ready to fight.
01:33Infamously, this is a blatant red herring, considering the fact that he's killed off
01:36unceremoniously 25 minutes into the picture. Justice for Scott Summers!
01:419. Frogs Frogs is a totally bizarre 1970s
01:46eco-terror film about wildlife photographer Pinkett Smith, as portrayed by Sam Elliott,
01:50who, whilst exploring a swamp, gets wrapped up in the strangest series of events.
01:55Taken to a private island, numerous animal-based murders occur,
01:58and landowner Jason refuses to let Pinkett leave.
02:01The poster for the film and the title are actually both misleading, as whilst frogs
02:06are certainly mentioned, the marketing for the movie seems to imply a much greater role than
02:10they get. Looking at the poster, you'd assume that this was a movie about giant, man-eating
02:14frogs. Not only are the frogs totally normal-sized, they're also not all that important an aspect.
02:19There's a lot of random deaths in the film caused by any number of animals – lizards,
02:24tarantulas, eagles, snakes, leeches – but the frogs don't really get involved until
02:28the final moment. And do they eat someone? No. Their en masse appearance seems to cause
02:32death by heart attack. Most likely, this is a case of an artist being given the film's name
02:37and genre, and then just coming up with something based on that alone. It's a totally nonsense
02:42movie at the best of times, so perhaps the poster is suitable for being equally ridiculous.
02:46But if you promise giant, man-eating amphibians, then you better deliver.
02:508. My Sister's Keeper
02:52If your initial expectations for My Sister's Keeper are bright, warm, and sunny, then you
02:56have the poster to thank for that. Cameron Diaz is smiling, Abigail Breslin is smiling,
03:01and Sofia Vasileva is innocently blowing bubbles. This looks like a heartfelt and
03:05wholesome romp about a happy family. In truth, these characters have very little
03:10to smile or blow bubbles about. The story follows a rather twisted family dynamic.
03:14Diaz's Sarah and her partner have their second daughter Anna expressly for the purpose of
03:18harvesting her organs to sustain the life of her leukemia-ridden older sister Kate.
03:23Terminal illnesses, legal clashes between family members, and mortality are not the
03:27subjects that come to mind when you see this poster. Let's just say it's not exactly the
03:32kind of thing you'd pick for a cosy night at home or a family film gathering.
03:36What's promoted as a touching drama is actually a pretty harrowing affair,
03:40and Sarah forcing her daughter into medical servitude is some pretty god-awful supervillain
03:44stuff. My Sister's Keeper is a fairly melodramatic tale that involves a lot of shouting and crying.
03:49There's not a lot of smiling or frolicking to be had, despite what the poster seems to imply.
03:547. Reign of Fire
03:562002's sci-fi fantasy flick Reign of Fire should have been a slam dunk. The concept of a world
04:01under siege from once-hibernating dragons was exciting and a fresh evolution of the dinosaur
04:06mania that had gripped the world following Jurassic Park. Its star-studded cast includes
04:10Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, and Gerard Butler, just to name a few. You could sell the
04:15picture today on that alone. Still, it never quite succeeded in the way that it should have,
04:20and some didn't enjoy the film's grey and grim Mad Max-style post-apocalypse wasteland.
04:25It probably didn't help that the marketing for the film was a lot brighter and had some frankly
04:28fantastic visuals that don't show up in the movie. What makes this poster worse than being a lie
04:33is that it looks, quite intentionally of course, way more awesome than the actual movie is. With
04:38dragons flying over a burning modern day London, it seems to imply that the setting of the picture
04:42is during the war between humanity and Giant Lizard, rather than, in truth, set decades after
04:48the fact. Of course, such a thing would have been a budgetary nightmare, but marketing your movie
04:52like it's the next big CGI blockbuster when it doesn't have the chops to back it up makes this
04:57a pretty big misdirect. 6. Bridge on the River Kwai
05:00This 1957 war drama is widely considered one of the best films of all time. It certainly has the
05:06accolades to back it up, being the highest grossing movie of its year, winning seven academy awards,
05:11and being now preserved in the National Film Registry for its significance to western culture.
05:16That being said, for all that it did well, there were some very weird missteps along the way.
05:21Bridge on the River Kwai had a few promotional posters, but one that stands out is the one with
05:25William Holden's character, Commander Shears, standing tall with the eponymous bridge in the
05:29background. Holden has fur spilling on all of the film's marketing, but what makes this strange is
05:33that he's arguably not the picture's main character. A pre-Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sir Alec Guinness
05:39plays Colonel Nicholson, whose character is at the heart of the bridge and who has the most
05:43important arc of the story. A British soldier who becomes obsessed with his labour to build the
05:48bridge, Nicholson ends the film by taking down his work in a final act of defiance.
05:53Colonel Nicholson is the beating heart of the piece, so this poster seemingly saying it's all
05:57about Commander Shears' thrilling heroics is all wrong.
06:005. Mortal Kombat 2021
06:03The original Mortal Kombat film might be B-movie nonsense, but it did give us the adored dance
06:08floor-filling techno theme tune, so we have to thank it for that. Mostly, it was gloriously
06:12stupid fun, with the highlight being the fight scenes with the series' mainstays Sub-Zero
06:16and Scorpion, even if they are brief. It felt as though the 2021 reboot of Mortal Kombat had this
06:22in mind then when the marketing for the film put these two characters in pretty prominent positions.
06:27The movie's poster was literally just these two faces and nothing more, and the trailer
06:31seemed to back up the idea that this would be a colour-coded ninja-focused affair.
06:35In actuality, whilst it is the best scene in the film, Sub-Zero and Scorpion's interactions
06:39are contained to the first 15 minutes and they're not even in their classic garb.
06:43After the fight concludes, we jump forward to the present day. Sub-Zero acts as an ongoing
06:47antagonist of the flick, but Scorpion only returns in the final showdown in a rather
06:52muted fashion. Mortal Kombat released during the Covid-19 pandemic and asked for a pretty
06:57hefty rental fee, especially here in the UK. How did it get you to part with your cash?
07:01Promising you a story focused on two characters that barely interacted in the film.
07:08There's definitely something wrong with knowingly making a poster to pull the wool
07:12over your audience's eyes to make a quick buck. It's bad when it's a big studio,
07:16but it's somehow worse when it's a group of small filmmakers trying to ride the coattails
07:20of a kind favour. Camp Hell is a 2010 horror film that explores the clash of religious faith and
07:25sinful urges. It's generally regarded as of middling quality and a pretty pointless movie
07:30to watch. More infamous than anything about the film itself is the way that Jesse Eisenberg
07:35reacted to being on the poster. To help sell the film, Eisenberg agreed to appear in a cameo for
07:39a reduced fee as a favour to friends of the production. Even as the most successful actor
07:44in the film's runtime, especially off the back of the social network, he didn't anticipate that
07:48the poster for Camp Hell would be nothing more than just his floating head. In June 2012,
07:53the actor won a preliminary court case suing Lionsgate and Grindstone Entertainment for
07:57misrepresentation. He didn't want to be part of the charade when he knew full well he only
08:01had a brief appearance that was shot in less than a day. Eisenberg earned $3 million in damages,
08:07which is more than the movie's budget, going to show that, like crime, telling lies doesn't pay.
08:133. Escape from New York
08:15Escape from New York is the tale of a walled-in Manhattan prison and the mission of one man,
08:19Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken, as he ventures inside to save the United States President.
08:24The film's poster depicts Snake and company seemingly trying to escape a riot,
08:28with the head of the Statue of Liberty lying prone in a random Manhattan street.
08:32It's famous for multiple reasons. First of all, it's a really cool piece of art and the
08:36kind of thing you'd frame and hang on your wall. Secondly, it doesn't reflect a scene in the film,
08:41it's all made up. There is exactly one moment where we see old Libby and that's near the start
08:46of the movie. Fun fact, this is the only part of Escape from New York actually shot in New York.
08:51At no point does the statue ever come back into things and naturally, of course, she doesn't get
08:55beheaded either. Come to think of it, considering she's way offshore, how exactly would the Statue
08:59of Liberty's head end up in a random street anyway? It's certainly a really cool image,
09:04but it badly misrepresents the film. If you were waiting to see that crazy action sequence,
09:08you were going to wind up disappointed. 2. Dracula 3000
09:13Dracula 2000 is an edgy and altogether awful noughties revamp of Bram Stoker's classic tale,
09:19so why anyone would want to pay homage to it by creating a film called Dracula 3000 is beyond
09:24comprehension. At least it's faithful in that, like Dracula 2000, there are also almost zero
09:30redeemable qualities in its runtime. Set aboard a spaceship 1,000 years in the future, cyborg
09:35Aurora and vampire slayer descendant Abraham Van Helsing must fight off Count Orlok and stop him
09:40from getting to Earth. The vampires of the film look exactly like the most low-budget expectation
09:45of a vampire as possible. Red contacts, fake fangs popped in over the teeth, impractical collars.
09:51So what the heck is that thing on the poster? Clearly trying to evoke the futuristic feel and
09:56going way too far with it, it badly misrepresents the film and promises a lot more than it can
10:00deliver. Some sort of cyborg vampire hybrid would have actually given this flick something
10:05interesting and it definitely gets the mind turning over way more than the movie deserves.
10:09As it stands, the vampires in Dracula 3000 are boring, which is at least perfectly in tune with
10:14the story, directing, casting and everything else. But hey, at least it's got that crazy poster.
10:201. Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines
10:23At one point Terminator 3 was considered the worst of the Terminator films,
10:27but then a few more came along that got progressively shoddier. The franchise had
10:30once been a clever sci-fi thriller, so many disliked Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines,
10:35taking a bigger step than before into ultimately thoughtless action.
10:39Schwarzenegger returns to the main role of the T-800, and his duty of protecting John
10:43and Sarah Connor continues against the new threat of Christiana Locken's T-X.
10:47What makes matters worse is that before the film's release, the posters seemed to show
10:51so much more potential than the finished product. Under Arnie's cold and blank expression was what
10:56appeared to be an army of Terminators with the T-X at the forefront. This ensemble of robots,
11:01and the subtitle Rise of the Machines, seemed to imply that the film would finally be an all-out
11:06war between humanity and Cyberdyne's creations. What we got instead was a watered-down version
11:12of Terminator 2 that put the franchise to bed for 6 years. Terminator Salvation finally gave us a
11:18look at the mass-scale clash of human and cyborg, but, ironically, its poor reception made Terminator
11:233 a much easier pill to swallow by comparison. And that's the list. Let us know what you thought
11:28of this video down in the comments below, and any other movies you can think of that are completely
11:33different from the poster. Make sure you like this video, share it with your friends, subscribe,
11:38and hit that notification bell. I've been Sy for WhatCulture, and have a good week.