Movie Posters Fans Absolutely Hated

A well-made movie poster accomplishes many things at once. It shares basic information, like the film's title, who's in it, and when it comes out. Beyond that, it tells you what genre the movie belongs to, and hints at the plot. The best posters go one step further, capturing the mood and atmosphere of the movie, and getting you excited to buy a ticket and sit down in the theater.

A movie poster that's not well-made only does one thing: it makes fans very, very angry. Sure, as the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Still, a movie poster is a marketing tool, and instead of attracting customers the following one-sheets simply managed to make everyone angry. As far as first impressions go, well, that's not a great look.

Even if you don't play video games, you probably know Lara Croft, gaming's first big sex symbol who became famous thanks to her large, disproportionately sized—neck? Wait, that's not right.

Tomb Raider's first trailer proves that star Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl) is an excellent choice for the role. In the video, Vikander looks and acts exactly like the version of Lara that appeared in 2013's Tomb Raider game reboot, which toned down the hero's sex appeal and ramped up her ferocious determination, rugged vulnerability, and peerless bow-and-arrow skills. This is a Lara Croft that's cunning, smart, and tough, and while she's certainly not hard on the eyes, there's much more to her than her looks.

But you wouldn't know that from the Tomb Raider poster, which transforms Vikander into a long-necked monstrosity courtesy of some poorly done photo manipulation. As some fans note, she looks a little like a velociraptor. We're excited for a film that treats Lara like a human being instead of a shallow pinup, but Tomb Raider's poster makes it impossible to focus on anything other than her appearance. She just looks too weird to think about anything else.

Before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo became a Hollywood blockbuster, it was a best-selling novel, a critically acclaimed foreign thriller, and the basis for an Emmy-winning TV miniseries. The heroic hacker Lisbeth Salander had legions of fans well before Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, and David Fincher decided to re-adapt her story, and many of them had very specific expectations about how the character would be portrayed.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's first poster met none of them. It wasn't just that the poster depicted Lisbeth, a staunch feminist, topless while being embraced by a fully clothed Daniel Craig, implying a submissive streak that's completely at odds with the character. It's that Lisbeth Salander is, among other things, a victim of sexual abuse. That's a fundamental part of her character. Author Stieg Larrson claimed he based Lisbeth on a childhood acquaintance, also named Lisbeth, who he saw getting gang-raped by three friends as a teenager (although Larrson's credibility is questionable).

Sexually exploiting a character who's driven to fight back after being sexually exploited is icky, and Dragon Tattoo fans reacted appropriately. According to Entertainment Weekly, some commentators called the poster "sordid," not "cool and sexy," and many fans grew worried that Fincher's adaptation would miss the point of the novel entirely. Not everyone was upset, however. Mara herself defended the poster, telling EW that "It's just a teaser poster" and arguing, "I think had I been doing something incredibly violent on the poster, people wouldn't have had a problem with it."

Zoe Saldana's turn as musician and civil rights Nina Simone icon was doomed from the very beginning. In short, Saldana just doesn't look right. While Saldana has relatively fair skin and is, by Hollywood standards, conventionally attractive, Simone's story involves her struggle to succeed in an industry that stigmatizes darker skin, frizzy hair, and, as one commenter said, her "thick features."

"My mother was raised at a time when she was told her nose was too wide, her skin was too dark," Simone's daughter told the New York Times in 2012, when Saldana was first cast in the role. "Appearance-wise this is not the best choice." On-set photos that showed Saldana in a wig, prosthetics, and dark make-up emerged did little to quell the controversy.

Still, as time went on, Nina sat on the shelf, unreleased, and most people forgot about the movie. When the film's poster arrived four years after filming, the entire argument resurfaced. Simone fans compared Saldana's makeup to blackface, and led many people to wonder why Hollywood didn't cast an actor who more naturally resembled Simone, like Viola Davis or Simone's alleged favorite, Whoopi Goldberg. Of course, the poster isn't Nina's biggest problem. When the film finally came out, critics slammed it—the film only has a 2 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes—making the whole exercise an unmitigated disaster.

Audiences either love or hate (or love to hate) Darren Aronofsky's mother!, a bizarre psychological horror-drama about a married couple, their unwelcome house guests, and an emerging cult. The film, which trades in allegory and some very, very violent images, has polarized fans, who think it's either a masterful work of art or, as the National Review puts it, "the vilest movie ever released by a major Hollywood studio."

Shortly after release, Paramount Pictures decided to double down on the film's divisive reception with a brand new poster that championed mother! as "the most controversial movie ever made." In true mother! fashion, even that poster is controversial. The main image, which splits Jennifer Lawrence's face in two, with one side beaten and battered and the other untouched, didn't sit well with many members of the public.

Even people who liked the movie called the poster, which evokes domestic violence, "atrocious." A journalist argued that, no matter what your opinion of mother! is, "the fact that a woman gets beat up in it shouldn't be the selling point." Naturally, Paramount hasn't commented on the poster's divided reaction, although they did stick up for the film itself. Given how the poster gleefully banks on how contentious mother! seems to be, however, it looks like Paramount is getting exactly what it wanted.

Look at the United Kingdom's poster for The Heat and, without looking at the credits, see if you can figure out who the two stars are. On the left, that's clearly Sandra Bullock rocking the shades and tactical vest. But who's that skinny, unrecognizable woman on the right?

Surprise! It's none other than Bridesmaids actress and Sean Spicer surrogate Melissa McCarthy. She just looks a little different, thanks to a Photoshop-assisted weight loss program that shaved an estimated 30 pounds off the actress and made her look entirely different in the process. Naturally, McCarthy's fanbase didn't react well to the poster's implicit body-shaming. On the UK show business blog The Shiznit, one commentator noted that McCarthy is "plus-sized and proud," and that while the photo manipulation itself is shoddy and unprofessional, "the intention behind it is downright nasty." Others tended to agree.

McCarthy, however, handled the controversy with her trademark sense of humor, jokingly blaming her husband for the weight reduction. "We had a big fight about it because I said I wanted it 80 percent smaller and he said he wanted it 70 percent," McCarthy told The Hollywood Reporter. On her next poster, McCarthy added, she might as well be headless entirely. Honestly, it'd look less weird.