Shocking reason movie trailer was pulled

A major Hollywood studio has been forced to apologise and wipe a trailer for a big budget movie from the internet in an extraordinary move.

A Hollywood movie studio has pulled down a high-profile trailer from the internet after it emerged it had included a bunch of fake reviews.

Lionsgate pulled the Megalopolis trailer just hours after its release early Wednesday morning in a hilariously messy mishap.

The new clip for Francis Ford Coppola’s overly ambitious passion project featured multiple made-up quotes from famous film critics.

Megalopolis is a $120 million passion project that Coppola self-funded, and widely expected within the industry to become one of the year’s biggest flops.

US director Francis Ford Coppola’s forthcoming movie is expected to be a massive flop when it hits theatres. Photo: Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP.

The trailer had attempted to reframe the narrative around the film, which critics have been ripping to shreds ever since its first screening, labelling it an “expensive bomb”.

Lionsgate did this by featuring several quotes from critics panning Coppola’s previous movies, which later turned out to become cult classics. However, the problem was, as fans realised, that many of the quotes weren’t real.

The trailer showed notorious film critic Roger Ebert describing Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a “triumph of style over substance,” but the quote was from a review for a different movie.

Another quote claiming to be from critic Pauline Kael was shown calling The Godfather “diminished by its artiness,” but she was one of the earliest fans of the film and its sequel and didn’t say this either.

Fans rushed to social media to call out Lionsgate for lying in the trailer, with one tweeting: “That’s hilarious, did they just think no one would notice?”

The expensive passion project stars the likes of actor Adam Driver. Photo: Victor Boyko/Getty Images.

“The press surrounding this movie has just been a disaster. Pretty much killed any anticipation I had,” said another.

Another poked fun at the movie’s quality, saying: “Could’ve just waited until the film released and they’d have enough bad reviews for 20 trailers.”

Following the backlash, Lionsgate swiftly pulled the trailer from the internet and released an apology.

“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a spokesperson said in a statement provided to Variety. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

Originally published as Shocking reason movie trailer was pulled