A filmmaker's goal is to make a good film; something that will win awards, be showered with praise, inducted into the Library of Congress, or at the very least be enjoyed by audiences. The goal of a film's marketing team is very different: to get people into cinema seats by any means short of outright lying.

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As such, films' trailers can often barely resemble the film they're advertising. Commonly, this is done to make a dark or serious film look more like a comedy, taking scenes out of context, or displaying all of the funny moments in the trailer.

10 Magic Mike Is A Sombre Reflection On Adult Performers

Mike talking to Adam in Magic Mike movie

Magic Mike is a film that is well-known for having Channing Tatum, Joe Manganiello, and a host of other attractive actors perform numerous striptease routines, being about male strippers and, according to the trailer, their sexy, comedic lifestyle. Except this isn't the case at all.

The film is undeniably about male strippers, but without the trailer's fun raunch, the film is a fairly serious look at the lifestyle. Its main storylines are Mike's burnout with his job, the use of drugs within the industry, and the performers' financial straits. Insightful and interesting, but not a barrel of laughs.

9 Jack The Giant Slayer Didn't Want To Look Like Lord Of The Rings

Nicholas Hoult, Ewan McGregor, and Eleanor Tomlinson in Jack the Giant Slayer

Particularly influential works of fiction in a genre tend to color perceptions of any subsequent works. Pirate films are going to be compared to Pirates of the Caribbean, superhero movies are going to be compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and unless they distinguish themselves, fantasy movies are going to be compared to Lord of the Rings.

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To avoid these comparisons, Jack the Giant Slayer geared its trailer to look like a comedic family fairytale film, as per its roots in Jack and the Beanstalk. The film itself was a somewhat dark fantasy action flick. This marketing would fail the film, and it would become known as a box office flop.

8 The Cable Guy's Wacky Jim Carrey Is Incredibly Unsettling

Jim Carrey as the titular guy in The Cable Guy movie

Certain actors known for comedy, regardless of their other work, are forever associated with the genre. One of these is Jim Carrey, whose more serious fare often ends up being assumed to be comedic, regardless of how dark it really is.

The Cable Guy played up to this. Carrey plays a strange and unusual man who latches onto Matthew Broderick's character, Stephen, whose antics very quickly cross the lines they would in real life, leading to Carrey's character becoming dangerous once he is rejected. The film contains black comedy, but it is largely used to palate-cleanse after some genuinely unnerving psychological thriller action.

7 Hancock Is A Superhero Tragedy

Will Smith as the terrible superhero Hancock in the movie Hancock

Certain genres also often get decided to be comedic fare, usually because they are seen as immature. Superhero movies often face this association. Hancock was marketed as a black comedy to feed into this notion, focusing on the title character's incompetent superheroics and the quest to improve his image.

In actuality, even the film's beginning is black comedy in its lightest moments, focusing on the destructive lifestyle Smith's Hancock leads, and becoming a full-blown tragedy by the end, centered around the doomed love of two heroes. There is comedy, but for the most part, the film is actually very sad.

6 Dark Shadows' Lack Of Comedy Was Presumably Intentional

The vampire Barnabas Collins with his descendants in Dark Shadows movie

It's unusual for a film to be based on a long off-air soap opera with supernatural horror elements, and yet that is exactly what 2012's Dark Shadows was, with Johnny Depp in the role of Barnabas Collins, a vampire who comes to live with his descendants.

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While the film has comedy, it is no more than most films. The trailer used nearly every moment of Barnabas struggling with modern life, implying that it was the sole focus of the film. In actuality, the plot is a rather serious romantic drama with a hefty dose of revenge, with the comedy taking a firm backseat.

5 Adventureland's Director Changed Things Up

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart playing a couple in Adventureland

After Superbad's comedy success, many assumed that the director's subsequent film, Adventureland, would be somewhat similar—a wacky and somewhat unbelievable comedy centered around amusing hijinks. Being set in a theme park did nothing to quell that notion, nor did much of its marketing.

Adventureland for the most part, is actually a romance film, with only one trailer highlighting the romantic aspects of the film. The thrust of the film's story deals with the relationship between Jesse Eisenberg's James Brennan, and Kristen Stewart's Emily Lewin, with a lack of emphasis on the raunch or the humor many expected.

4 Spring Breakers Is A Bloody Crime Film

The criminal protagonists of the movie Spring Breakers

The premise of 'sorority girls go on a crime spree in swimsuits' is a film that most people are going to assume is not a serious one. The trailers for Spring Breakers heavily played up that it was about former Disney girls attempting to shed their image, in a movie many assumed would be an adult comedy.

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In actuality, Spring Breakers is a crime film with a hefty dose of murder. It is far from the genre's most hard-boiled, and has more than a few farcical elements, but they are for the most part played straight, with a story that takes itself rather seriously.

3 Four Brothers Is More Grits Than Laughs

The titular four brothers plotting to avenge their mother in Four Brothers

Some would consider it an unusual choice to market a dark crime thriller where four sons attempt to uncover and avenge the murder of their adoptive mother as a comedy, and yet that is exactly what the studio behind Four Brothers did, taking scenes out of context, to the extent of making a tragic death scene appear comedic in trailers.

The film would be ultimately profitable, whether because of or in spite of its marketing, but critics were harsher on it, believing it to be overwhelming and glorifying violence. Nonetheless, it probably received a better welcome than it would have as a straight comedy.

2 The Bicentennial Man Attempts To Be Cerebral

Robin Williams' character looking at himself in the mirror in The Bicentennial Man

Famed science fiction author Isaac Asimov is not a man one readily associates with comedy, and yet beloved actor Robin Williams is. Ultimately, the latter won out with the 1999 movie The Bicentennial Man, with the marketing depicting Robin Williams as a fun comedic household robot who develops quirks.

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People who went to see it found a philosophical science-fiction film examining the nature of humanity, consciousness, eternal life, slavery, and a whole host of other topics. The film would prove to do poorly with critics, in part for being overserious and sentimental.

1 The Truman Show Is Nearly A Straight Drama

Truman looking at himself in the mirror in The Truman Show

Jim Carrey has done more than one largely dramatic film that has been marketed as a comedy to capitalize on his reputation. The Truman Show is well-known as a fairly dark drama about a man who is raised within a fictional world as a character in a television program, and eventually decides to make his own fate once he discovers the truth.

The trailers did not represent the film's tone as such. While the plot was somewhat conveyed, very specific scenes of Truman being funny in-character were shown, to indicate that the character was going to be much like many other Carrey roles. Instead, it is possibly Carrey's most serious film.

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