A cinemagoer who complained that an explosion seen in a trailer for recent Tom Cruise thriller Jack Reacher did not make the final cut is to get his money back.

The man, identified only as J Congdon, complained to New Zealand's Advertising Standards Authority after realising the tantalising shot had been removed from the theatrical release by Hollywood studio Paramount. "The explosion where the whole cliff comes down was the defining part of the ad that made me really want to go see the movie … aside from having Tom Cruise in it," he wrote in his letter of complaint.

Paramount said it was happy to refund the cost of a ticket but pointed out that it was standard practice for Hollywood to release trailers cut "weeks or months" in advance of the final movie. "Thus, despite our best intentions, it is always possible that certain scenes appearing in an advertisement or trailer may not appear in the final version of a film," the studio told the authority. "The explosion in question was a single split-second element omitted from a 130-minute long action film." The studio said at least two other shots in the trailer had not made the final cut.

New Zealand's Commercial Approvals Bureau, which approved the trailer, said it believed the complaint should be dismissed because the promo posed "no threat of confusion to the large majority of TV viewers". The Advertising Standards Authority ruled the matter settled because a ticket refund had been offered and the offending advertisement was no longer airing.