Spoiler Alert: Marvel’s Battle with Movie Leaks

Marvel movies are known for their intricate plot, unparalleled character arcs, and surprise cameos. However, in order to reach this point, they have to avoid what all movie fans fear: spoilers. The MCU takes great precaution in ensuring that spoilers are not a problem, and if they are, they make the best use of it. Let’s take a look at Marvel’s history with them:

 

One of the keys to Marvel’s ability to preserve secrets is the small team they have and the limited amount of information other people are given. For instance, the last two Avengers movies saw most of the actors get just their portions of the script. Only a select few, like Robert Downey Jr., were able to read the entire Avengers scripts. In order to ensure the general public has no access to these film details, Marvel keeps details from their own staff. Karen Gillan was part of Avengers Endgame as Nebula, and she had this to say about spoilers, “We didn’t even get a script, there was no script. Just my scenes. I’d sometimes get them just in the morning, do them, hand them back over at the end of the day.” While this may be true for a lot of the cast, there is one member that gets access to all of the script. Robert Downey Jr., more famously known as Iron Man, was given full access to the Avengers Endgame script. 

 

One specific instance of Marvel’s challenge with spoilers was balancing the characters at the end of Endgame. The Russo brothers, directors of the films, did not want characters knowing that they were shooting Tony Stark’s funeral at the time. There was a lot of coordination that had to go into what the actors would know and what they wouldn’t readily know. Mark Ruffalo specifically said that he remembers being told that they were shooting a wedding scene. Tony Stark’s exit and Robert Downey Jr.’s retirement from the franchise were something of a foregone conclusion, but rumors surrounding production did include a potential wedding between Tony and Pepper, so Marvel’s little ruse appears to have done its job. For such a stacked cast, the Russo brothers had to be extra careful to ensure that they would not give anything away.

While the majority of this piece surrounds Marvel’s success in the spoiler game, there has been one villain to their story: Tom Holland. Famous for spoiling movies, Marvel has taken a different approach to making it work in their favor. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has been using this popularity of Holland as a movie spoiler to Marvel’s advantage stating “The truth is that Tom is amazing, and has kept a lot of secrets. About the two-millionth time it came up about him being terrible with secrets, he came up to me and said, ‘You know, I do keep a lot of secrets…’ I know, but it’s a thing now, a fun thing, so let’s lean into it. And he’ll go off and spoil something else.” Tom Holland on social media was seen “revealing” the Avengers Infinity War poster, however, this was theorized to be another publicity stunt. Even Mark Ruffalo, known for his role as the Hulk, is considered to be a spoiler hazard. “We did not take any special measures for Tom or Mark Ruffalo, who has a tendency to let his phone record at all times and all places,” Feige explained. “But they’re also both so lovely that you can’t get that mad.” Both characters play such integral roles in the development of the MCU, so their so-called spoilers can only benefit the movie franchise. Overall, Marvel is unique in the way they handle spoilers. They not only take precautions to cover the plot but reveal information to the public. As Thanos once said, “perfectly balanced, as all things should be”.