10 Movies That Tricked You By Killing Main Characters Early

2. Contagion

With an ensemble cast or disaster film, it's almost impossible to tell who will make it through the end. This trend can be traced back to the days of producer Irwin Allen, who always ensured some characters got their just deserts while innocent victims trapped in terrible situations were fair game. If the leading man died, it was often out of some heroic sacrifice.

Stephen Soderbergh - the director who keeps saying he's retiring before suddenly dropping another film without warning - took the same approach with Contagion. Led by a star-studded cast and a global setting, a new virus starts to violently spread, with the CDC and WHO desperate to find a vaccine.

It takes the disaster film - which is often set in a contained environment - and unleashed it worldwide. Years earlier, Wolfgang Petersen's Outbreak toyed with the same idea, but kept it within the safe, big Hollywood constraints. With a month of the virus spreading around the world, it was only a matter of time before one of the leads for contract and fatally succumb to the symptoms.

We just didn't know it'd be Gwyneth Paltrow, who opens the film with a trist with a former lover before returning home with what appears to be a common cold. Two days later, however, she's on an autopsy slab. A flashback later reveals she was actually Patient Zero.