Wolverine Publicity / Film

Films — Animation

• Despite only being a secondary character in Peter Pan, Tinker Bell has been used to introduce just about every Disney TV special of the past several decades. Younger generations of kids might not even know why she's important!
• The Blu-ray cover of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs features the Queen in the front and center, in her hag form, with Snow White relegated to the bottom of the picture.
• The cute and fluffy blue alien Stitch is represented in Lilo & Stitch's marketing much more than the little girl Lilo Pelekai, with the theatrical poster◊ simply showing Stitch surrounded by other Disney characters, referencing the film's promotional campaign of Stitch hijacking iconic scenes from other Disney Animated Canon films. In fact, Stitch became so popular a character (and such a merchandising powerhouse) that not only did Disney make three sequel films and a cartoon TV series with him, but they also made three spin-offs where Lilo was removed as a lead character. By The New '20s, Disney even began rebranding his franchise by shortening it to just his name, although they started bringing Lilo back into the fray beginning with the Agent Stitch book series in 2022.
• The Smurfs and the Magic Flute was originally a Johan and Peewit film, but when The Smurfs became really popular the title was changed to make it look like they were the stars, even though the film really focused much more on Johan and Peewit.
• The Jungle Book 2, just like its predecessor, mostly focuses on Mowgli. However, most of the advertisements for the movie put much more focus on its deuteragonist and Breakout Character Baloo than the other characters, Mowgli included, with the movie's poster loudly proclaiming "Baloo is back!".
• Wreck-It Ralph:
  • Wreck-It Ralph is about video game characters, both original and already famous from other titles. So while the story only deals with Disney's original characters created for the film, a lot of posters prominently featured Sonic the Hedgehog, Zangief, M. Bison, Q*bert, Clyde the Pac-Man Ghost, and Bowser in them, even though they only have seconds to minutes of screen time for each of them. Calhoun, one of the four major characters, didn't even make it onto the front cover of the DVD case because of all space taken up by the extras. In-Universe, it's Played for Drama/Averted; Ralph seeing Vanellope's picture on the console is what causes him to realize that she is supposed to be in the game.
  • Advertising for Ralph Breaks the Internet really put emphasis on the scene featuring all the Disney Princess girls together. This scene doesn't even occur until the middle of the film and is only a few minutes long. As it turns out, it's more than just a funny gag. The princesses help save Ralph in the climax. They're still far from as prominent in the movie than they are in the marketing, though..
• The posters and covers of Tom and Jerry: The Movie prominently featured Droopy, despite his only getting a short cameo. One could even argue Tom and Jerry themselves were victims of this trope, since the movie wasn't really about them anyway but about a poor little orphan girl.
• The Kung Fu Panda animated shorts Secrets of the Furious Five and Secrets of the Masters are both advertised as being "brand new Po adventures" when they're actually about the Furious Five and the Master's Council. Po is just the narrator.
• For Melody Time, Donald Duck, who appears in the "Blame It On the Samba" sequence, receives some fanfare in the VHS trailer and is the only character on the DVD case. On the other hand, most theatrical posters, both domestic and international, prominently featured another character from a different segment, Pecos Bill.
• In the poster for Foodfight!, the Product Placement characters are featured first and foremost on the film poster, even though the characters in question aren't featured prominently in the film.
• Promotional materials for Big Hero 6 give the big adorable robot Baymax the most attention by far, with the theatrical poster only including him, and the Japanese title changing to "ベイマックス" (Baymax).
• The Peanuts Movie suffered this in some countries, tackling Snoopy and Charlie Brown's names in the beginning of the title, easily the two most popular characters. While Charlie Brown is easily the lead character in the film, Snoopy suffers from this (possibly as a whole for the franchise), being a supporting character at best (though this is mostly because the strip is not called "Peanuts" in some foreign markets).
• Happy Feet: While Robin Williams plays a side role in this movie, his role is heavily featured in teasers, leading many to assume the film would be a wacky family comedy rather than the environmental drama it really was.
• Kubo and the Two Strings heavily advertised George Takei, to the point that in some trailers, he got higher billing than Matthew McConaughey. In reality, he played a minor villager in the beginning and end the film.
• When Periwinkle became a Breakout Character in the Disney Fairies movies just when Disney decided they were going to pull the plug on the franchise for low toy sales, the toy line decided to shove her into every line they had, elbowing out characters who had earned the spotlight she took. She barely appeared in The Pirate Fairy, but she was on more merchandise for it than Iridessa, Fawn, and Vidia combined, and all three were present and important to the plot; the same happened for Legend of the NeverBeast. Peri might have started showing up more again in the movies too, but the ones after that were scrapped.
• Bing Bong, Riley's imaginary friend from Inside Out became this because of the crucial role he plays in the film's plot and for being adorable and hilarious. It got to the point where his image was placed on Inside Out merchandise packaging, even if the product was not related to him at all.
• The Minions are this for the Despicable Me franchise. They appear in most of the marketing and merchandise by far rather than Gru himself, who is the main character of the movies. They are also notably very popular with the baby boomer generation (people born from 1946-1964), meaning that they have been frequently placed onto packaging for food and other goods to increase product sales.
• Despite not being the main protagonist of Monsters vs. Aliens, B.O.B. gets the lion's share of promotion. On one of the DVD covers◊, he's the focus character while Susan (the actual main protagonist) is shunted off to the side, and he gets top billing in the 2013 series with a majority of episodes and advertising focusing on him over any of the other monsters or aliens.

Films — Live-Action

• Jack Nicholson became (at the time) the highest-salaried actor in film history for his performance as The Joker in Batman, even getting a share of the film's enormous box-office take. Warner Bros. promoted him as the movie's main star on posters, on videotape boxes, and in the credits of the movie itself. This extended even to DC Comics' official adaptation◊, which, despite being clearly titled Batman, showed the Joker's face looming like a godlike apparition over Gotham City, while a smaller image of Batman himself appears below.
• The American DVD cover of Infernal Affairs shows Kelly Chen posing with a gun. At no point in the movie does she have a gun, or even an action scene. The two main characters get much less space on the cover. On the other hand, this might just be a case of Sex Sells. The Chinese DVDs rightly put Andy Lau and Tony Leung up front, but since fewer Americans know who any of them are, they decided to sex things up a bit.
• In at least one video store, in the French film section, there is a sub-section called "Films in which Audrey Tautou has less screen time than the box art would suggest." There's also a "Non-Satanic Malevolent Children" section in Horror, but that's neither here nor there.
• "Bruceploitation" refers to the wave of Bruce Lee imitators, and Lee-style martial arts movies, that followed the superstar's death. Actors adopted stage names like Bruce Li, Bruce Lei, and Dragon Lee in an attempt to cash in on Lee Mania. Jackie Chan recalled how his early movie posters would say "the next BRUCE LEE, Jackie Chan," with Lee's name much larger than his own.
• The undisputed king of Wolverine Publicity in the Star Wars universe has to be Darth Vader — this trope could have well been called "Vader Publicity". Even when the main focus of Lucasfilm's marketing is a series that doesn't involve Vader as a Sith Lord, such as the first two prequels or Star Wars: The Clone Wars, one can be absolutely sure to see zillions of different products featuring Vader in the current merchandising line. Often, original trilogy characters are included in the line, or the line itself becomes partly original trilogy-focused, for the sake of including Vader merchandise. One can also expect a cameo or two from the Sith Lord in some form in the media itself (such as a vision to his former self Anakin in Star Wars: Clone Wars), or at least a new character that happens to be a blatant Expy (such as Darth Malak in Knights of the Old Republic).
  • Revenge of the Sith had a heavy marketing campaign focused on featuring Anakin finally becoming Darth Vader and his first chronological appearance in the Vader suit. While the movie does detail his turn to the dark side, he doesn't don the outfit until the very end of the movie.
  • It's even parodied in LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace where throughout the movie, Darth Vader would appear out of nowhere to take center stage of a scene, only for a LEGO mini-figure of George Lucas to call cut and tell Vader he's not in the movie because it takes place in the prequel era.
  • The original Star Wars movies were the rise, fall and redemption of Darth Vader - the last part meaning he dies in the last one. Well, once Disney decided to make more movies, The Force Awakens just had to include Vader's destroyed helmet as early as the trailer and a Darth Vader Expy as the villain (in-universe, a deliberate case of copycat, as it's his grandson who also fell for the Dark Side).
  • In the original pitch for Rogue One, Vader had a single minor appearance with no dialogue. The execs requested that his part be beefed up, so he was given dialogue and a truly spectacular action scene at the end of the movie. His helmet is also featured prominently on the movie's poster, and is actually larger than many of the main characters. Coincidentally, he's the only character in the poster that doesn't die.
  • An aversion for what became Rebel Moon: Zack Snyder initially pitched the story as a Star Wars one to Lucasfilm, to no avail. One of the contention points was that he didn't use any established/recognizable Star Wars character in his story. In the end, the project became its own thing.
• The DVD release of Mazes and Monsters has on the cover a dragon, a castle and a maze. None of these things appear in the movie. The title refers to a roleplaying game (a reference to Dungeons and Dragons) played by the characters. Furthermore, while Tom Hanks is in the movie, the picture of him on the cover is from when he was much older and well established. Furthermore, despite how much the breakdown of his character drives the plot, he was actually a supporting character and given rather low billing compared to the other cast members (the movie seems to treat Jay Jay as the main character).
• Dazed and Confused was promoted with posters prominently featuring Milla Jovovich simply because she was, at the time, the most famous person in the cast. She only has one line in the movie, is not a focus character in the ensemble action, and only pops up a handful of times. She's also on the cover of the DVD cases (excluding The Criterion Collection edition) since those reuse one of the movie's promotional posters.
• The Guyver is absolutely shameless about this. In the old VHS and DVD covers, Mark Hamill's face is front and center and his name is given top billing, making people believe that he becomes the Guyver. This never happens.
• Deep In The Valley has Kim Kardashian on the front cover. She appears in the actual movie for all of ten seconds and her character does nothing other than lets the heroes into a night club.
• The DVD cover for Frankenstein Island features only John Carradine's name at the top, and his face is on all of the different DVD covers. In the movie he plays the ghost of Dr. Frankenstein, and his screentime is less than five minutes combined.
• The DVD cover for Showtime's 2005 musical parody Reefer Madness features Neve Campbell, both with her picture displayed in the foreground and her name at top-center - yet her character is in two scenes in the whole movie, once for the length of a musical number and the other for literally the three seconds it took to say her line, and like John Carradine above, has less than 5 minutes total screen time.
• In Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, you could be forgiven for thinking that Angelina Jolie's character was the main character, being the focus of basically every commercial and having a spot on the cover. Turns out that her character gets around 10 minutes of screentime.
• The Hungarian movie Sacra Corona featured Franco Nero on the cover. He appears in the role of Gerard Sagredo in the opening scene, where he's promptly killed. He makes a second appearance as a ghost towards the end of the film.
• Although Steven Seagal is featured prominently in the promotional material for the film Executive Decision, his character meets an untimely death barely a quarter of the way through the movie.
• The American DVD for The Twins Effect (retitled Vampire Effect) places Jackie Chan prominently on the cover. His appearance only amounts to a cameo.
• The White Witch, Big Bad of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, has made a cameo in the film versions of both Prince Caspian (when her three worshipers try to force Caspian to resurrect her) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (as a form taken by the Mist of Evil), despite being completely absent from the respective books. (In this case, it has more to do with Tilda Swinton's contract, as she signed on to do and get paid for three films.)
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Advertising for The Avengers puts the spotlight on Iron Man, whose movies became the highest grossing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at the time. The Blu-Ray box art for the film shows Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk, the four Avengers who had their own movies prior to the big team-up. Hawkeye and Black Widow are completely absent.
  • Due to the character's obscurity, a lot of the marketing for Ant-Man referenced the Avengers. A series of posters were made showing Ant-Man posing on top of Iron Man's armor, Captain America's shield, and Thor's hammer, complete with the tagline "No shield. No hammer. No problem," even though none of those characters appear in the movie proper.^note Captain America does appear in the second Stinger, which is actually a scene from Captain America: Civil War that has very little bearing on the plot of Ant-Man. Cap himself never meets or interacts with Ant-Man at any point in the film. Additionally, the TV spots spoiled The Falcon's cameo in the movie, and even made sure to include the scene where Luis excitedly points out that Falcon is one of the Avengers, just in case there was anyone left in the audience who didn't realize the movie takes place in the same universe as the Avengers flicks.
  • The studio did the same thing for Doctor Strange, with one TV spot showing prominent shots of Iron Man's helmet, Thor's hammer and Cap's shield, likely for the same reasons as Ant-Man. Another TV spot took this even further by using recycled footage from Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. Furthermore, one TV spot (narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch himself) depicts the Avengers as dogs and then ending with...Dogtor Strange. Yet another spot has Cumberbatch analyzing the injuries of the cast of Captain America: Civil War.
  • One of the selling points used to market Spider-Man: Homecoming after the failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the presence of Iron Man as Peter's mentor. Some fans complained about this, to the point that the film's poster (which managed to feature Iron Man twice) became a meme in its own right.
  • Likewise, while the second Black Panther trailer includes a voiceover from Ross that references the other heroes of the MCU, the international version of the trailer took this a step further by actually showing recycled footage of Thor, Iron Man, the Avengers and the Chitauri.
  • The first trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp actually begins with reused footage of Scott fighting Iron Man's team during Civil War. Later TV spots also show footage from Avengers: Infinity War.
  • In an inversion, after Black Panther ended up as an insane hit at the box office (becoming the highest grossing solo film in the entire MCU), the later promotional material for Avengers: Infinity War made sure to prominently feature the character, as well as Okoye and Shuri.
  • This trend popped up again in the marketing for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which used unrelated footage of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk for some of the TV spots. Eternals, released the same year, would do something similar, with some of the TV spots for the film using shots of popular Marvel characters like the Avengers and Spider-Man, even though none of them actually appear in the movie.
  • After the massive success of WandaVision, the marketing for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness heavily featured Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch, complete with the first two trailers making sure to explicitly reference the events of the show. In the actual film, she's the Big Bad, with the events of the show influencing her Face–Heel Turn.
  • A case of Marvel outside the MCU piggybacking on the bigger franchise happened with Morbius, which is set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, yet in one trailer showed the Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming to tease a connection between the 'verses. (Adrian Toomes does appear in the film, in a post-credits scene widely derided for not making any sense)
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Wonder Woman quickly became this for the DCEU following the massive success of her own movie, as well as her well-received supporting part in the otherwise-panned Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Aside from the marketing for Justice League greatly playing up her presence, the cover for the "Ultimate Edition" of Batman v. Superman made sure to feature her front and center◊. The same thing happened with both the Blu-Ray and 4K Ultra HD home releases◊ of Justice League. The trend has become so pronounced that the first teaser for Teen Titans Go! To the Movies actually parodied it by opening with a shot of the Titans dressed in Wonder Woman costumes. SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods also revealed her cameo appearance in TV spots (despite director David F. Sandberg intending for it to be a surprise) in a blatant attempt to drum up interest among fans who weren't otherwise interested in seeing a Shazam movie. She even received an action figure from McFarlane Toys based on her appearance in the movie, despite none of the members of the Shazam Family (other than Billy himself) or the villains getting this treatment.
  • Along those same lines (and as mentioned in the Comic Books section), Harley Quinn experienced a massive surge in popularity after becoming the Breakout Character in Suicide Squad. No less than three Spin-Off films were in various stages of development at one point, and one of them, the adaptation of Birds of Prey, was eventually titled Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) to capitalize on her fame.
  • Likewise, when Aquaman unexpectedly became an utterly massive success at the box office and the biggest hit of the entire DCEU, WB responded by pimping the character heavily, including a special ad promoting Jason Momoa's reprise of the Aquaman role in The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (even though it's not a terribly big part). The post-credit scene for SHAZAM! was basically an extended Aquaman gag, with Billy trying to see if he can talk to fish, and WB even released a fake teaser that marketed Shazam as Aquaman 2 as an April Fools' Day joke.
  • 2022 saw two different cinematic interpretations of Batman on the big screen, with The Batman and DC League of Super-Pets (which features Batman in a supporting role) both coming out the same year. And note that The Flash (detailed below) was also scheduled to release in 2022 at one point, meaning it was almost four Batmen.
  • The Flash is notable for featuring the return of Michael Keaton as Batman for the first time since Batman Returns way back in 1992. Unsurprisingly, a large amount of the film's marketing has revolved around this fact, with both the theatrical trailer and the Super Bowl ad treating the reveal of Keaton in the Batsuit as a major Wham Shot, and the first poster being a shot of the Flash standing in the Batcave while the Batwing looms overhead. Batman also dominated the merchandise assortment for the movie, with a McFarlane Toys' Flash line featuring action figures of both Keaton and Ben Affleck's respective incarnations the character, as well as the Batmobile, Batwing and Batcycle.^note By contrast, General Zod and Faora, two of the film's major villains, didn't receive figures from McFarlane at all. Though Faora isn't seen much in the end. This has caused some observers to speculate that Warner Brothers didn't have much faith in the Flash's ability to actually carry a movie, and thus hedged their bets by prominently including Batman. In the end though, it didn't prevent the movie from being a Box Office Bomb.
  • In early 2023, it was announced that a new Batman movie called The Brave and the Bold would be launched as part of James Gunn's reboot of the DC Universe on film and other media under DC Studios, with a new actor taking over the role from Ben Affleck. As Matt Reeves' mini Batman universe with Robert Pattinson is also slated to continue (including a Spin-Off HBO Max series focused on Colin Farrell's Penguin), this means WB plans to produce two unrelated Batman film franchises for the foreseeable future (or three if you count the sequel to Joker).
• Pee-wee Herman makes a cameo in the 1987 comedy Back to the Beach. His scene doesn't really advance the plot (not that Back to the Beach had much plot to begin with, anyway), and seems to have been included only because Pee-wee's portrayer, Paul Reubens, was one of the biggest stars in the world at the time. (You'll also notice that he's prominently featured on that movie's video box cover, despite appearing on screen for only a few minutes.)
• Ultimately subverted by Anna Nicole Smith in To the Limit (1995). She was heavily promoted as the star of this direct-to-video action flick, despite not portraying the main character and despite To the Limit being a sequel to an earlier film — Da Vinci's War — in which Smith hadn't even appeared! (This was a year or so after Smith had been named Playboy Playmate of the Year, appeared in some sexy ads for women's jeans, and been cast in relatively small roles in two major Hollywood movies, so at the time it seemed like she was everywhere.) Throughout the movie (which, continuity-wise, is pretty much a mess anyway), her character is featured to a ridiculous degree, at one point with the story stopping dead in its tracks just to show an extended sequence of her naked in the shower! And yet, despite her character being both The Ditz and a Faux Action Girl, Anna Nicole is the one more responsible than anyone else for defeating the villain in the end! Weird.
• Optimus Prime is the most advertised character in the Transformers Film Series, followed by Bumblebee and the human characters. Also, the Dinobots are heavily featured in the marketing campaign for Age of Extinction, even if they only are on-screen for 15 minutes.
• Based on marketing, you would think Drew Barrymore was the main character of Scream, when in reality her character dies several minutes into the movie. Despite this, she even received top billing on some promotional material (she was credited toward the end as "And Drew Barrymore" in the actual film).^note She was originally cast as the lead, Sidney Prescott, but due to scheduling issues she had to take the smaller role of Casey instead This was a marketing gimmick since they were paying homage to Psycho by killing off the supposed main character early on, shocking audiences.
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Legolas gets minimal screen-time in this film, but he was an Ensemble Dark Horse in The Lord of the Rings. Three guesses who got the most coverage in all the trailers.
• Both movie adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory place more focus on Willy Wonka than protagonist Charlie Bucket in their advertising, DVD box art, etc. (The first film, of course, is actually titled Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, but the reasons why didn't have to do with this trope.) Mr. Wonka is a Deuteragonist who is offstage for the first half of both films, aside from a few brief flashbacks and a voiceover in the 2005 version. Mr. Wonka also tends to be the most prominent figure on cover illustrations and in advertisements for other adaptations, but the films are the worst about this trope.
• When 12 Years a Slave was promoted in some countries overseas, the poster they used was different than the one promoted in America. Instead of the promotional posters showing the large image of the film's lead, Chiwetel Ejiofor, his image is mostly replaced by a huge one of Brad Pitt who has a small role in the film. This caused a huge backlash among many movie goers. The studio explained this trope as being the reason for the poster change, claiming Brad Pitt was more popular and well known among foreigners.
• The advertising for the television debut of Logan's Run made it sound like Farrah Fawcett, who'd just become a superstar with Charlie's Angels, was one of the main characters. Nope. She just had a bit role as a nurse.
• Subverted in Se7en, where in order to keep the antagonist's identity a secret to cinema-goers, Kevin Spacey wasn't used in promotion for the film at all despite being a significantly bigger star than anyone else in the cast at the time.
• Inverted with James McAvoy, who generally receives the short end of the stick when it comes to marketing. Even when he portrays the lead character, he is occasionally ignored or placed in the background of promotional materials.
  • The Last King of Scotland: McAvoy's Dr. Nicholas Garrigan is the main protagonist, but Forest Whitaker's Idi Amin completely dominates the theatrical poster◊ and the North American Blu-Ray/DVD cover.◊
  • Atonement: For the official Japanese poster◊ and the Canadian DVD artwork,◊^note which incorrectly lists Knightley's name first Keira Knightley is much more noticeable than her male co-star, even though James has the most screen time.
  • Wanted: Despite receiving first billing, McAvoy is considerably smaller than Angelina Jolie on the poster◊ and the standard DVD cover (which used the same picture), but he's treated more fairly on the Blu-Ray artwork.◊
• Victor Frankenstein: The story is told from Igor's perspective, yet James McAvoy has slightly more prominence than Daniel Radcliffe in the trailers, the theatrical◊ posters◊ and the old-fashioned alternate poster created by professional artist Ciara McAvoy. Moreover, the film was known as Igor for a time, but the title was later switched to Victor Frankenstein. Radcliffe is more famous than McAvoy (e.g. the former's IMDb STARmeter is almost always consistently higher than the latter's), so it's unusual that the marketing department chose to give more focus on the less well-known actor.
• During the credits at the beginning of Life of Pi, they give a special emphasis in Gérard Depardieu having a role in it, but his total screen time, as the ship's cook, is no more than four minutes.
• Marketing for The Place Beyond the Pines prominently features Ryan Gosling, making him out to be the main character. This is true, for the first third of the film, as he is killed and the rest of the movie revolves around his death.
• This print advertisement◊ for The Greatest Story Ever Told features the face of John Wayne as the Roman Centurion— neglecting to mention that it was a Celebrity Cameo role in which he has exactly one line.
• International advertisements and covers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) put a lot of emphasis on Raphael. Which is the character with the most focus, but nonetheless...
• Fighting with My Family features Dwayne Johnson on the poster. He only appears in three scenes (As Himself no less, as the movie is the biopic of a wrestler).
• DVD releases of A Shot in the Dark (which is the second entry in The Pink Panther franchise) have the most peculiar and interesting case of this, through the means of having The Pink Panther on the cover, even though he does not appear in the film's animated opening credits.

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