The Movie Studios That Had More Fun Than Anyone on April Fools’ Day

April arrived before the spring breeze even had a chance to blow in. If you look at it purely from the film industry’s point of view, April 1st is a pretty bleak day. But it’s also the day when “April Fools’ Day”—a festival of pranks and lies—makes it easy to find things to laugh about. Hollywood, which generally prefers pranks that are a bit more “edgy” than many parts of Asia, doesn’t treat April Fools’ Day lightly either. Because it began in the Western world, there have always been plenty of cases where people go all out and pull pranks. Here are a few April Fools’ pranks that Western films or film companies have shown over the years.

“Deadpool is, of course, rated R”

This is a video uploaded to YouTube on April 2, 2015 (Korea time) on the channel “Joblo Movie Network.” It’s an interview scene with Ryan Reynolds and Mario Perez. At first, they talk about Reynolds’ thoughts about his trip to Vancouver and stories about Deadpool. Then when Mario Perez says, “I heard the production company is making it a PG-13—targeted release,” Ryan Reynolds hesitates and goes along with it. Next, while Mario Perez explains that “if you make it more family-friendly, it’s easier for sequels or toys to come out,” Deadpool pops in and smashes Mario Perez with a lighting device (!). Then he proves—right in the dialogue—that it’s an R-rated movie: “It’s April Fools’ Day—of course 〈Deadpool〉 is rated R.” Deadpool—who has always shown off creative bits by popping in and out of the so-called fourth wall even from the original comic—is basically replying to the disappointment some fans felt after seeing his appearance in 〈X-Men Origins: Wolverine〉—when they worried this upcoming film might be a misstep. In other words, it’s a chance to reaffirm the intention to “make Deadpool, the Deadpool way.” Ironically, after the first movie became a huge hit, they really did end up releasing 〈Deadpool 2: The Mild Version〉. In it, they removed all the adult-targeted scenes entirely from the R-rated second movie and added new ones.

“An actor MI6 is trying to recruit!”

A news post uploaded on April 1, 2015 says: “After training for three months for 〈London Has Fallen〉, Gerard Butler received an offer to join MI6 (the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service).” If you look at the person who posted the news and the question, “What does that even mean?” you can tell it’s Lionsgate—because it’s the distributor of 〈London Has Fallen〉. In simple terms, it turned “Our film actor delivers such great action” into an April Fools’ prank. The prank seems to have landed as a pretty successful joke, likely thanks to its fresh idea, its bureaucratic tone, and even a subtle nod to Gerard Butler’s past—before he switched from lawyer to actor.

Hulu: “We’ll match you with someone who shares your tastes!”

Hulu—meaning Hulu, or rather the streaming service that came before Disney+. At one point, (allegedly) it rolled out a genuinely original feature: a system that matches couples. In 2016, Hulu released a video titled “Introducing: Hulu Data” through its official YouTube channel (Hulu Datr). The gist was this: don’t worry about your dates—just get matched with the person whose viewing preferences most closely match yours, based purely on Hulu’s viewing data. Looking back, it was quite a visionary concept. And in the video, it shows the couples it matched “scientifically,” focusing on two people who look like they’ve been happily married for a long time, plus all kinds of other explanations that sound fake but still feel official. It doesn’t even look like it uploaded just one video—like posting each couple’s video separately. It looks like they really put effort into preparing for April Fools’ Day.

Netflix “We acquired Seth Rogen, body and soul—”

Of course, Netflix—which announced a “big deal”—also had its own prank. On April 1, 2018, Netflix posted an image on the front of its platform with the words “Netflix acquires Seth Rogen.” So what does that mean? If you’re wondering, and you quote part of the press release, it says that “Seth Rogen has entered into a contract in which he transfers his personal autonomy to Netflix for life.” Naturally, it was all just an April Fools’ prank. But Netflix had a reason for going to such lengths with it. At the time, Seth Rogen was scheduled to host a charitable event called “Hilarity for Charity” on April 6, and Netflix was supporting it by livestreaming the event. With that shared momentum, their plan was to pull off a prank like this to attract even more attention from the public. Leaving aside whether the prank’s intention was a good one, they probably prepared everything while enjoying it the most—based on the press release saying, “I got the idea because I heard Seth Rogen say, ‘If I could just have one more enchilada (a Mexican traditional dish) at the filming party, I’d sell my soul too,’” as well as what you can see when you look at the moment Seth Rogen signed the contract on social media.