7 Movie Trailers That Had Us All Fooled

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street Was Actually A Musical

So, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a musical. If you were familiar with the source material then you likely knew that, but for anyone who went into this movie based on the trailer alone, well, you were probably in for quite a shock. I mean, we really didn’t get any indication at all from the trailer that this would be a full blown musical, did we?

Featuring a brief scene of Johnny Depp belting out a tune, the rest of the preview presents Sweeney Todd as a dark, gothic revenge tale from the twisted mind of Tim Burton. It’s misleading, to be sure, and I have no doubt that a good chunk of people walked into the movie expecting something completely different.

While I can understand the purpose of marketing Sweeney Todd like the studio did, they really should have made it more clear that it was a musical. Just look at trailers for recent films in the genre, like Les Misérables and Into The Woods. They made no effort to hide what they truly were, and that’s how it should be.