To be fair, Pan’s Labrynth was an marketing disaster. It was advertised as not only being in English (It’s in spanish), but a family friendly fantasy movie (lol no)
It got so bad that video rental stores at the time had to put up warnings telling people “No we didn’t accidentally stock the Spanish version, the movie is not in English”
It’s definitely one of the biggest “Never Trust A Trailer” stories of all time. right up there with Kangaroo Jack and Bridge to Terabithia
For those who aren’t aware… or just weren’t around during those controversies -
Kangaroo Jack - Was meant to be a stoner comedy about two guys chasing a kangaroo when they accidentally leave a jacket containing a mob boss’ drug money, on a Kangaroo and have to track him down to get it back. When it tested poorly with audiences, the film was marketed as being about a talking rapping cgi anthropomorphic kangaroo that gets into shenanigans… In the actual movie: The Kangaroo is a normal non-sapient kangaroo who just hops around with the jacket of illict cash. Footage of the Talking and rapping was from a sequence where the two guys chasing the kangaroo get high and hallucinate that the roo is rapping.
In order to sell this as a kid’s movie and get the proper rating, the theatrical cut removed many of the swears. Including a running joke where characters would call each other “Chicken Shit” (Which was changed to “Chicken Blood”)
Weirdly enough it has an animated Straight-To-TV sequel that aired on Cartoon Network, once again the Kangaroo does not actually talk outside of a dream sequence where he sings “Mama Said Knock You Out!” during a boxing match (Meaning they pulled this shit twice! With the same franchise!)
I remember seeing both and being insanely bored, wondering when the hell the Kangaroo would actually do something.
It is cited as one of the most blatant cases of False Advertising in Cinema History
Bridge to Terabithia - Not as infamous, but just as heinous
It’s based on a Death By Newbury Medal book about an imaginary kingdom where a boy and his female friend work out their day-to-day problems. Getting there via a rope that they swing across, one day he skips out on their usual meet up and comes back only to find that she managed to accidentally hang herself when rope swinging went wrong.
The kid builds a bridge to said imaginary kingdom (the bridge in the title!) in memory to his friend, who he feels guilty about believing (correctly) that if he had been there or if he just had let her in on what he had been doing that day, she’d still be alive. The movie ends, like the book, with the kid sharing the imaginary kingdom with his little sister, taking her across the bridge, in order to keep the memory of his friend alive.
The trailer? Shows the kid and his dead friend walking across the bridge into a magical kingdom, nothing about the kingdom being imaginary is said, and it’s intentionally cut to look as much like the trailer for “Chronicles of Narnia” as possible; a film that had come out not too long ago and was believed to be the start of the “Next Harry Potter Movie Series!”… only for the second movie “Prince Caspian” to not do so good
There are horror stories of kids going to see it, and not only being confused that the kingdom wasn’t real, but being horrified that one of the lead characters (a literal child) dies in a gruesome realistic manner
Personally I like the movie, and was pissed that it was marketed the way it was, as I saw it when a family member rented it expecting to laugh at what a horribad ripoff of Narnia I expected it to be, only for it to be a pretty beautiful film. Said family member loved the book and was confused why I was weirded out by the movie, until I showed them the trailer which rightfully pissed them off.
If it wasn’t advertised as a mockbuster I may have seen it in theaters.
Personally: While I do like the movie, I hate the “Death By Newbury Medal” trope, plenty of boys grow up to be well-adjusted men without a tragic death of a pet or loved one being there to symbolize the end of their innocence.
Oh God, the Kangaroo Jack one was so egregious. I remember us renting that movie as a family and definitely feeling cheated that it’s a fairly mundane comedy movie, no animated talking and singing kangaroos except for that single scene.
Luckily I was quickly warned that Bridge of Terabithia, while being marketed as a Chronicles of Narnia ripoff, was actually kinda sad. I think it helped that it’s based off a book so more people were familiar with the source material.
To be fair, Pan’s Labrynth was an marketing disaster. It was advertised as not only being in English (It’s in spanish), but a family friendly fantasy movie (lol no)
It got so bad that video rental stores at the time had to put up warnings telling people “No we didn’t accidentally stock the Spanish version, the movie is not in English”
I probably would’ve thought the same if a friend didn’t regale us with the descriptive introduction to the torture scene.
It’s definitely one of the biggest “Never Trust A Trailer” stories of all time. right up there with Kangaroo Jack and Bridge to Terabithia
For those who aren’t aware… or just weren’t around during those controversies -
Kangaroo Jack - Was meant to be a stoner comedy about two guys chasing a kangaroo when they accidentally leave a jacket containing a mob boss’ drug money, on a Kangaroo and have to track him down to get it back. When it tested poorly with audiences, the film was marketed as being about a talking rapping cgi anthropomorphic kangaroo that gets into shenanigans… In the actual movie: The Kangaroo is a normal non-sapient kangaroo who just hops around with the jacket of illict cash. Footage of the Talking and rapping was from a sequence where the two guys chasing the kangaroo get high and hallucinate that the roo is rapping.
In order to sell this as a kid’s movie and get the proper rating, the theatrical cut removed many of the swears. Including a running joke where characters would call each other “Chicken Shit” (Which was changed to “Chicken Blood”)
Weirdly enough it has an animated Straight-To-TV sequel that aired on Cartoon Network, once again the Kangaroo does not actually talk outside of a dream sequence where he sings “Mama Said Knock You Out!” during a boxing match (Meaning they pulled this shit twice! With the same franchise!)
I remember seeing both and being insanely bored, wondering when the hell the Kangaroo would actually do something.
It is cited as one of the most blatant cases of False Advertising in Cinema History
Bridge to Terabithia - Not as infamous, but just as heinous
It’s based on a Death By Newbury Medal book about an imaginary kingdom where a boy and his female friend work out their day-to-day problems. Getting there via a rope that they swing across, one day he skips out on their usual meet up and comes back only to find that she managed to accidentally hang herself when rope swinging went wrong.
The kid builds a bridge to said imaginary kingdom (the bridge in the title!) in memory to his friend, who he feels guilty about believing (correctly) that if he had been there or if he just had let her in on what he had been doing that day, she’d still be alive. The movie ends, like the book, with the kid sharing the imaginary kingdom with his little sister, taking her across the bridge, in order to keep the memory of his friend alive.
The trailer? Shows the kid and his dead friend walking across the bridge into a magical kingdom, nothing about the kingdom being imaginary is said, and it’s intentionally cut to look as much like the trailer for “Chronicles of Narnia” as possible; a film that had come out not too long ago and was believed to be the start of the “Next Harry Potter Movie Series!”… only for the second movie “Prince Caspian” to not do so good
There are horror stories of kids going to see it, and not only being confused that the kingdom wasn’t real, but being horrified that one of the lead characters (a literal child) dies in a gruesome realistic manner
Personally I like the movie, and was pissed that it was marketed the way it was, as I saw it when a family member rented it expecting to laugh at what a horribad ripoff of Narnia I expected it to be, only for it to be a pretty beautiful film. Said family member loved the book and was confused why I was weirded out by the movie, until I showed them the trailer which rightfully pissed them off.
If it wasn’t advertised as a mockbuster I may have seen it in theaters.
Personally: While I do like the movie, I hate the “Death By Newbury Medal” trope, plenty of boys grow up to be well-adjusted men without a tragic death of a pet or loved one being there to symbolize the end of their innocence.
Oh God, the Kangaroo Jack one was so egregious. I remember us renting that movie as a family and definitely feeling cheated that it’s a fairly mundane comedy movie, no animated talking and singing kangaroos except for that single scene.
Luckily I was quickly warned that Bridge of Terabithia, while being marketed as a Chronicles of Narnia ripoff, was actually kinda sad. I think it helped that it’s based off a book so more people were familiar with the source material.
I didn’t even know it was a book until after I watched the movie and was told by the person who rented it
I had to read the book in maybe 5th grade or thereabouts… Main character dying messed me up a bit… I remember this overwhelming feeling of unfairness…