The trailer for Dragon Wars promised me scenes of dragons fighting attack helicopters. This scene did appear in the movie… for about thirty seconds. The rest was an incomprehensible mess of flashbacks within flashbacks and Korean folklore that amounted to very little.

There have been trailers that contain a lot of missing scenes because they’re put together before the final cut off the film has been created.

I remember Josh Trank’s version of Fantastic Four features a scene where the Thing jumps out of the back of a cargo plane and lands in a military base. Nothing close to that happens in the film.

I remember Man of the Year being advertised as a straight comedy: Robin Williams plays a Jon Stewart type that actually gets elected president, hijinks ensue.

!It pretty quickly turned into a serious thriller. He didn’t even actually get elected, he only won because he entered the race after a program was installed to steal the election for another candidate, and the convoluted conditions wound up favoring him instead. !<

Kangaroo Jack

Kangaroo Jack’s premise, trailer, and commercials promise little more than the spectacle of two enthusiastic actors being kicked over and over again by a sassy, computer-animated kangaroo—and, sadly, the film fails to deliver even that.

Feelsbadman

Bridge to Terabithia.

Donnie Darko - makes it look like a horror movie

Godzilla (2014) - made it look like Bryan Cranston was the star (right off the heels of Breaking Bad)

Downsizing - made it look good

One of the best trailers ever made: The Handmaiden. If you’ve seen the film or know the director, Park Chan-wook, you know it’s anything but what the trailer implies.