As aggravating as it can be when a trailer spoils a movie, it's worse when a poster does
it.
Their designers only have one job: to create a single compelling picture that gets audiences
excited to see a film.
But it doesn't always work out.
Here are some posters that somehow managed to spoil the entire movie.
Kiefer Alert
2003's Phone Booth is the story of a man played by Colin Farrell who stands inside a phone
booth for the better part of a day, and for almost the entire film.
Surprising as it may sound, that premise leads to a pretty interesting story, because he's
a hostage who's being told to stay inside - or else - by a voice on the other end of
the line.
That's the movie's central mystery: who's the caller?
With all this hype surrounding the mystery man, it'd be pretty silly if the promotional
material revealed his identity, and yet that's exactly what happened: Kiefer Sutherland is
featured prominently in one version of Phone Booth's poster, as well as the DVD case, looking
very suspicious.
If you saw the poster before you saw the flick, the experience of watching Phone Booth is
reduced to waiting around for Sutherland to finally show up as the villain at the very
end, as promised.
"Isn't it funny?
You hear a phone ring, and it could be anybody."
Ender's ending
This particular Ender's Game poster spoils the finale of the film by showing the climax's
most important shot.
Coupled with even a basic synopsis of the film, this gives it all away.
2013's Ender's Game is the story of a kid named Ender who must train to prevent an alien
invasion.
Couple that knowledge with the poster's image of Ender blowing up a planet with a giant
pair of mega-lasers, and there really aren't a lot of questions left on the table.
"If we destroy the planet, we destroy the queens."
And even if one doesn't immediately connect the dots before starting the film, the poster's
true nature will eventually reveal itself and still guarantee that the ending is spoiled
way ahead of time.
Fun, terminated
While the second trailer for 2015's Terminator Genisys gave away this big spoiler as well,
trailers are far easier to avoid than a poster, which reveals its contents the second you
see it.
The designers of this Terminator Genisys poster chose to reveal that its "hero," John Connor,
is actually a Terminator and, by extension, the villain - a twist that doesn't creep up
until halfway through the movie.
Worse yet, this is the movie's only real twist.
It's not like the marketing team had anything else up their sleeves when they revealed this
bombshell.
This is the movie's sole hook - leading some to speculate that the poster was just a desperate
attempt to garner excitement for the film even at the risk of cannibalizing its only
thread of intrigue.
Throwing the fight
1985's Rocky IV allegorically speaks to Cold War tensions between the United States and
the Soviet Union.
World champion Rocky Balboa represents the U.S., while the unfeeling Ivan Drago represents
the Russians.
It's about as clear-cut as a movie can get, in terms of setting up an obvious good guy
and bad guy.
Given that dynamic, no one should have any questions about who is going to win the big
fight at the end.
However, in case there was any lingering doubt in a prospective viewer's mind - Rocky did
lose at the end of the first film, after all - this poster cleared that confusion right
up.
Featuring the title character cheering, bruised, and draped in an American flag, the poster
puts the film's ending front and center for all to see.
No twist in Thailand
For the most part, the marketing for 2016's 10 Cloverfield Lane was very carefully crafted
to maintain the movie's sense of mystery.
Audiences were left to wonder why John Goodman was so intent on keeping Mary Elizabeth Winstead
trapped in his bunker.
Did it have something to do with the Cloverfield monster from the last movie with "Cloverfield"
in the title?
No one knew - at least until an official poster came out in Thailand and blatantly spoiled
the big finale.
It depicts an alien spacecraft, with Winstead booking it away from the ship in a run for
her life.
This poster spoiled the massive twist at the end of the movie - as well as the rest of
the story leading up to that point - all with a single image.
"Oh boy.
That's bad."
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