You couldn’t make this up. Well actually you can.
The trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis movie was removed after they fabricated fake reviews in it.
To explain, the movie received a lukewarm response and the critics weren’t so thrilled with it. So the trailer was to showcase other films over the years that weren’t immediately successful but would go on to become smash hits.
To demonstrate this, they had quotes from critics not being complimentary of various films such as “Apocalypse Now,” “The Godfather” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
The only problem was that these quotes were made up and now the film is mired in even more controversy.
When it comes to movies, people want to know what other people think as if they can find out in advance that something isn’t good, they can save two hours of their life.
Because people love to watch movies and because there are many more bad ones than good ones, this is a real concern.
If these quotes were made up, one can only wonder what else is made up.
The offending trailer that was posted to YouTube was replaced. Are any of these comments on the new trailer fake?
Of course this controversy also made its way to the movie’s Wikipedia article
Not every movie is amazing and a smash hit. While the studio and the people behind the movie may be concerned with the bad reviews, maybe the bad reviews are warranted.
Of course, this is an art form and not everyone has the same opinion when it comes to art. Two qualified experts could have wildly opposing views about something but if there is universal anonymity that something isn’t good, should you hype it up in order to sell tickets.
This could be ok in the short term but it could backfire in the long term and there is no better example of this than Star Wars. Star Wars was the biggest franchise in the world and its mystique only increased because for 16 years there was no new content. But then between 1999 and 2005 they released three new films and between 2015 and 2019 released a film every year.
To say that the movies were disappointing is a massive understatement. Now people have been turned off the brand completely and have no interest in coming back.
This is the problem with hype – if it’s not justified people feel taken advantage of. If a reviewer loses all credibility, what else do they have?