Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Tom Hardy’s Legend film snuck a 2-star review onto its poster, made it look like 5

'Its so f*cking clever, I'm not even mad about the deception'

Christopher Hooton
Wednesday 09 September 2015 08:29 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

There are a few tricks film marketers will use to shroud bad reviews on posters - taking single words out of context, putting 5-star reviews from disreputable publications in small font - but this one is particularly shocking/ingenious.

The Guardian gave Kray twins crime drama Legend two stars in its review, but they were placed in such a way as to look like the other three were hidden behind Tom Hardy’s head.

Reviewer Benjamin Lee confirmed as much on Twitter:

“Incredible way of making my two star review seem like I didn't hate the film,” he wrote.

While deceitful, many were simply amazed by the cunningness of the layout.

“Its so f*cking clever, I'm not even mad about the deception,” one Reddit user wrote.

Chris Morris’ Four Lions movie previously decided to just send up the marketing method with this poster:

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in