Sci-Fi Movie Trailers That Lied To Audiences

Every movie trailer has a clear job. In a couple of minutes, it needs to convey what a movie's about, show off the famous faces in it, and what viewers can generally expect from the plot. Of course, there are various ways this can go horribly awry. It feels like many trailers these days, especially for high-profile blockbusters, give away far too much of the plot. It's like watching the Cliffnotes version before the film's even in theaters. But at least with that the audience knows what it's getting to a ridiculous degree. However, some trailers don't just hide what the movie's about, and they outright lie to audiences.

This has gotten various studios in trouble over the years. In 2022, fans sued Universal for false advertising with the "Yesterday" trailer, which included scenes starring Ana de Armas, but the actress is nowhere to be found in the film itself. There are many such instances where the trailer has scenes that don't make it into the final cut or has a drastically different tone to what the movie actually is. Even if it doesn't lead to a lawsuit, deceptive trailers can still make audiences feel duped.

This has been particularly prevalent with science-fiction films over the years. Perhaps with outlandish, otherworldly concepts and merging sci-fi sensibilities with other genres, trailer editors have to get creative to make these movies look palatable to general audiences. That could also include giving more screen time during a trailer to an actor who isn't even in the film all that much. Either way, these sci-fi trailers lied to us, and while some can be forgiven, the ideas presented in a few of these trailers is far better than the final product. 

It shouldn't require much to sell people on a new "Godzilla" movie. As far as American-made films, the 1998 version left a bad taste in audiences' mouths, but things looked significantly better for the 2014 film. The marketing had a much darker atmosphere, and Godzilla himself looked more like previous iterations of him rather than a slightly altered Tyrannosaurus Rex. If you watched the trailer, you were probably ecstatic to see none other than Bryan Cranston have a sizable role in taking down the formidable beast.

The only problem when "Godzilla" actually came out is that Cranston doesn't have that much of a role. He appears as engineer Joe Brody in the very beginning of the film and is then promptly killed off, paving the way for Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to have more of the leading man duties. Cranston effectively gets fridged to a degree, with his death catalyzing Ford to do more. It's a disappointing revelation but not all that surprising. 

This "Godzilla" film came out in 2014, just a year after the ever-popular "Breaking Bad" ended. Cranston's portrayal of Walter White for five seasons was heavily lauded, and it continues to be considered one of the best TV shows of all time. Undoubtedly, the marketers behind "Godzilla" wanted to take advantage of the actor's goodwill and featured him prominently in the trailers, with one featuring a large amount of Joe Brody voiceover, as well as clips that make him seem like the lead instead of Taylor-Johnson. Godzilla may be the King of the Monsters, but Walter White's the one who knocks, and audiences missed out on the two duking it out.

"Edge of Tomorrow" is a fantastic sci-fi action flick that no one really knew how to market. For starters, the film's title appeared to change partway through its theatrical release, as many marketing materials began placing an emphasis on its logline: "Live. Die. Repeat." To the uninitiated, it'd be easy to assume that's what the movie was called, and it's admittedly a far cooler title. But a confusing kind of name change wasn't the only thing working against the Tom Cruise movie. 

As you can see, the trailer is decidedly dramatic. There's action, but it looks far too serious, with everything being underscored by the slowed-down, self-serious "This Is Not the End" by Fieldwork. As anyone who's seen the film should know all too well, the movie is actually pretty funny. There's an entire montage of Cruise's character dying after he gets splashed with alien blood and can repeat the same events dying over and over again. At one point, he tries rolling underneath a vehicle only to mistime it and get smooshed before even entering the battlefield. 

"Edge of Tomorrow" certainly has its dramatic moments, too, but the trailer should've made it look more like "Men in Black" and less like "War of the Worlds." Many who saw "Edge of Tomorrow" really enjoyed it, which makes the proposition of "Edge of Tomorrow 2" fairly enticing. In the event a sequel ever materializes, they better do the right thing and not downplay the fact audiences get to watch him die a few dozen times. 

Walking into a movie that was marketed as being a serious drama only to find ample humorous moments isn't the worse thing in the world. Something that may catch more people off guard is when a film's trailer makes it look like a comedy only for it to be deathly serious and political. That was the case for anyone who walked into 2017's "Downsizing."

The film follows Paul (Matt Damon) who decides to undergo an experimental surgery to make him tiny and then live amongst others who have also "downsized." The trailer makes the whole thing look pretty amusing. A flower bulb is the size of Damon's torso! It felt like people should get ready for a bunch of goofy sight gags, but the problem is that the trailer largely used scenes from the first third of the film, which is arguably the most lighthearted. 

After Paul gets small, he learns his wife, Audrey (Kristen Wiig), backed out at the last second, so he has to build his life back from scratch in a completely new world. There's also the plot point that humanity is doomed even with a bunch of people growing tiny and using fewer resources, so the folks in the minuscule community will have to hide out in a bunker for thousands of years and try to rebuild down the line. It's a far darker film than the trailer would suggest, especially seeing "Saturday Night Live" alums Wiig and Jason Sudeikis in the cast. "Downsizing" may technically be labeled a comedy-drama, but it's more on the drama side of things than comedy once you're out of the first act. 

The initial teaser for "Alien 3" might be the most deceptive thing ever put out by a major studio. It's an effective bit of marketing, as we see one of the Xenomorph eggs hatching while the narrator recalls fonder memories of the original "Alien" coming out in 1979. But then it ends with: "In 1992, we will discover on Earth, everyone can hear you scream." That's a pretty explicit promise that Xenomorphs will make their way to Earth in the threequel, but as we now know, that didn't happen at all. 

The production on "Alien 3" was an infamous disaster, with it coming out six years after the wildly successful "Aliens." Numerous screenwriters took cracks at the story, but 20th Century Fox wanted something with wide commercial appeal. They hired David Fincher to direct in his first feature-length film gig, but they kept him on a tight leash. Most confounding, the studio released the above teaser a full year before the movie was set to hit theaters when filming had only just started. More than likely, Fox wanted to build hype even if they didn't really know what the movie would be about, which in this case was about inmates in space dealing with the acid-filled aliens.

Fans would have to wait until the "Alien vs. Predator" movies to finally see Xenomorphs on the blue planet. Then there's FX's "Alien: Earth," which should take the concept a bit more seriously. To be honest, "Alien: Earth" really should've recreated the above teaser as part of its marketing but with the end disclaimer, "And this time, it's for real."

There's no shortage of baffling creative choices made in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, but the biggest of them all has to be the decision not to include Spider-Man in any significant shape or form. There would be hints, like Peter Parker's Uncle Ben (Adam Scott) showing up in "Madame Web," but fans could be forgiven for assuming Spidey would show up sooner in "Morbius," given that there's a shot of Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) walking by a mural depicting Spider-Man with "Murderer" graffitied over him. 

Not only were fans certain Spider-Man would finally appear in the cinematic universe named after him, but it even appeared to be the Spidey suit worn by Tobey Maguire's version. However, this never came to pass, as Spidey nor the mural appear in the final film. The only hint of Spider-Man we really get is the odd post-credits scene of Morbius meeting Vulture (Michael Keaton) from "Spider-Man: Homecoming" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Vulture isn't sure how he wound up in this reality, but he think it has something to do with Spider-Man for ... reasons? Why would he think that? 

Combined with the "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" post-credits scene of Venom (Tom Hardy) getting pulled into the MCU, only to return without ever meeting Tom Holland's Peter Parker, fans were once more left high and dry. After "Kraven the Hunter," Sony's Spider-Man Universe seems dead, and maybe that's for the best until they can figure out how to build out a Sinister Six with some halfway decent movies for a change. 

"Morbius" is far from the only superhero movie trailer to mislead audiences, although "Avengers: Infinity War" wasn't quite as egregious. One of the film's trailers includes a pretty epic shot of a bunch of heroes, including Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and, most notably, the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) charge at Thanos' (Josh Brolin) army in Wakanda. Not only is that shot nowhere to be found in the finished film, but Bruce Banner famously doesn't change into the Hulk outside of the opening sequence, when Thanos beats him up. 

Bruce struggling with maintaining a balance with the Hulk is his main arc in the movie, and during the Wakandan battle, he shows up in Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) Hulkbuster armor. To be fair, having Banner not Hulk out in what's clearly the film's climax would've been a fairly big spoiler. Everyone would naturally wonder why Hulk isn't there to kick butt. By the time "Avengers: Endgame" rolls around, Hulk and Banner have a far more amicable relationship, with Banner being able to communicate while in Hulk's body as Smart Hulk. It's not exactly the arc many would've expected when viewing the trailer back in 2017.

Will Smith has had a ton of success as a sci-fi leading man in films like "Independence Day" and "Men in Black." From the trailer, "After Earth" looks like another solid action flick, with Smith bringing along his real-life son, Jaden Smith, to play his son in the film. With M. Night Shyamalan directing, some may have thought this could be hit-or-miss, but they were in for a rude awakening upon realizing Will Smith is hardly in the movie. 

The two crash land on Earth, with Cypher (Will Smith) getting his legs broken. Therefore, it's up to his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) to venture into a hostile Earth, 1,000 years into the future, to locate a distress beacon. That's right, Will Smith's character is pretty much sidelined from the start, as he largely communicates with Kitai remotely. 

The trailer featured Will Smith as much as his son, making it seem like they would be co-leads. Will Smith even narrates a portion of the teaser, suggesting he'd play a prominent role, but "After Earth" is mostly Jaden Smith's story. Between this and "The Karate Kid" remake, the early 2010s showed the younger Smith just wasn't ready for the big time at that moment. 

Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" films have stacked casts filled with some of the most popular actors working at the moment. The trailer for "Dune: Part One" made sure to show off plenty of Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, as well as Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Jessica Ferguson, and Jason Momoa. However, there are few actors hotter right now than Zendaya, and she appears in three different places throughout the "Dune" trailer, which is odd, seeing as she really isn't in the movie all that much. 

Zendaya plays Chani, who has a far more prominent role in "Dune: Part Two." She only appears in seven minutes of the 155-minute runtime of the first "Dune" film, but audiences unfamiliar with the book may have expected she would be in it a lot more. Instead, she appears haphazardly in visions to Paul and then shows up at the very end after House Harkonnen has overthrown the Atreides family. 

Chani's tease largely exists to set up Paul going out into the desert before fulfilling the prophecy set forth by the Bene Gesserit. The big winner is all of this is Zendaya, who was reportedly paid $300,000 for her brief stint in "Dune: Part One." 

In 2010, the "Predator" franchise took the "Aliens" route and promised a movie that would have multiple of the titular monster. Fans truly thought they were in for an alien bonanza with "Predators" from the trailer, which included a scene of Royce (Adrien Brody) standing in the middle of a forest when over a dozen laser sights from Predator weapons appear on him. Holy cow! This movie is going to have over a dozen Predators. It's really going to live up to its name. 

The truth of the matter is that the film only has four Predators, which technically means the title isn't a lie, but it's substantially fewer than folks were probably expecting. In the final film, there's only one laser sight on Brody during that scene from a singular Predator. Of course, just one Predator is scary enough on its own, but it doesn't really sell the idea that these humans will have to escape from a few over the course of the movie. 

It probably makes sense the humans in "Predators" didn't have to suddenly escape from 15 Predators, as they surely wouldn't make it away alive. Still, it's one thing to expect an army, only for it to actually be four Predator buddies who are on the equivalent of a weekend hunting trip together. 

Jim Carrey has had his share of more dramatic roles, like in "The Truman Show" and "Man on the Moon," and they're also among his best performances. Even those have elements of comedy, but it's safe to assume most people affiliate the actor with goofy comedies along the lines of "Liar Liar." It's likely for that reason the trailer editors for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" decided to make the film look like a kooky Jim Carrey romp rather than the sad reflection of how traumatic bad relationships can be.

The trailer opens with an explanation of the surgical procedure at the heart of the story, Joel (Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) undergo to forget their time together. After that, we get a montage of various characters giggling and dancing set to "Mr. Blue Sky" from Electric Light Orchestra, one of the most upbeat songs you can put in a trailer. The whole thing looks like a blast. Sure, we know there's something about erasing painful memories, but how bad can it be if Elijah Wood shows up wearing droopy-eye novelty glasses?

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Minds" has its humorous moments, but it's not precisely what we'd call a feel-good movie implied by the trailer. The movie's about how healing shouldn't involve forgetting a painful past but instead embracing it. Anyone hoping for a movie where Jim Carrey pretends like his butt is talking would've been sorely disappointed.