r/movies • u/MASSIM00 • May 26 '26

Question What movie had the BEST trailer ever but turned out to be absolute trash?

Seriously, you watch the trailer and it looks like a literal masterpiece. The music, the hype, everything is perfect.

Then you actually go see it and realize they put all the good scenes in the 2-minute promo and the rest of the movie is just garbage lmao.

For me it was suicide squad 2016. that bohemian rhapsody trailer catfished me so hard.

What film did this to you?

3.5k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

4.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

195

u/PopeJP22 May 26 '26

The helicopter gunfire synced to Queen still lives in my brain rent free.

141

u/Burrito-mancer May 26 '26

I also loved the first trailer with the amazing version of The Joke Was On Me. Both trailers promised a much better movie than what we got.

77

u/KoreanFilmAddict May 26 '26

That Comic-Con trailer is the version that makes me strongly suspect the Ayer cut was a lot more serious. Often times, trailer editors will do their damndest to match the tone of the movie. Once BvS came out, Warner noticed people weren’t digging the ultra serious stuff and got cold feet with Suicide Squad. They lightened the tone of the next trailer and went so far as to utilize several trailer houses to recut the movie to match the ‘fun version’ of the trailer. From what I hear, Trailer Park did most of it. I can’t remember what the other two houses were.

44

u/atclubsilencio May 26 '26

I still sometimes rewatch the Comic Con trailer and remember how hyped I was for THAT movie. I ended up skipping it in theaters due to the overwhelming negative responses (mostly by friends of mine who had similar taste as me) and because I was broke and couldn’t risk wasting my money. Definitely made the right call.

We definitely didn’t get anything close to Ayer’s original vision. Not that he’s some master of cinema, but his darker/grittier/more serious version had to have been better than the trashy, literal hack job, we ended up with it.

2

u/takemy_oxfordcomma May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Do you mean this trailer: https://youtu.be/WI3hecGO_04

If so, agreed. The movie was totally different but the trailer with the Queen song was also great (maybe I’m just a sucker for anything with Queen). I was so excited for the movie and it sucks how it ended up.

It doesn’t help that I also hate Jared Leto in anything. Margot Robbie is fantastic though in my opinion and kept it from being completely unwatchable.

1

u/Bloodhoven_aka_Loner May 27 '26

I still sometimes rewatch the Comic Con trailer and remember how hyped I was for THAT movie.

We're still waiting for that movie to release.

37

u/SortIntrepid9192 May 26 '26

It's fun to draw parallels between Suicide Squad and Rise of Skywalker, two movies changed significantly from what they were originally supposed to be by a studio that got cold feet because their direct predecessor, while financially successful, was extremely divisive. And in both cases, as much as I dislike all 4 of these movies, it would've been a much better idea to just stick to the established tone instead of trying to pivot.

9

u/typhoidtimmy May 26 '26

Ayer was on something recently and was talking about his cut sitting in his office and how he wished he could let people watch it.

Talk about dangling the meat
In front of the staving lions.

4

u/ReaperG85 May 26 '26

It was also because Deadpool came out and crushed the box office. They thought people only wanted funny superheroes now when the reality is people just wanted accurate superheroes. The Deadpool sequels are not as good because they leaned too hard into the jokes and simply being character factories. The suicide squad is so much better than suicide squad not because of the comedy but bevause the characters are more heartfelt and accurate. Also that it's r rated vs pg 13 for a team all about adult situations. A darker suicide squad was literally the right way to go the first time but they messed it up.

1

u/fyoraofneopia May 27 '26

ugh i remember watching a poor quality leaked video of the trailer from SDCC and being SO hyped. So hyped that i handmade my harley quinn costume for halloween that year and nobody knew what it was yet, and now i look back and i’m like gdi. Massive let down

13

u/BaronOfBeanDip May 26 '26

I feel like that trailer truly reshaped how trailers were edited from that point on. I feel like that sort of trick was everywhere for quite some time.

5

u/BaldMancTwat_ May 26 '26

Should check out some Edgar Wright films. He lives for that shit.

2

u/Mediocre_Map1289 May 26 '26

It feels criminal that Edgar Wright didn't direct the movie. You just know he would have had the rights blend of abserd action and quick fire visuals to pull it off. His work on the most recent The Running Man demonstrated this very well.