10 Movie Secrets They Actually Managed To Keep Before The Film Started
5. The Mandarin Twist - Iron Man 3
Undeniably one of the most controversial yet best-guarded plot twists in recent memory is Iron Man 3's infamous Mandarin debacle.
Despite the marketing hyping up Ben Kingsley as playing a ferocious iteration of Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) famed nemesis The Mandarin, in actual fact fans got bait-and-switched.
Instead, a mid-film reveal confirmed that Kingsley was actually playing a stooge actor named Trevor Slattery, who was employed to take the heat off the "real" Mandarin, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce).
Regardless of what you make of the reveal and its general execution itself, Kevin Feige had this thing locked down like a weapon of mass destruction.
The irony of the spoiler being so well-kept, however, is that this only aggravated the fanbase more when they sat down to watch the movie and were surprised to learn they wouldn't be getting a comic-faithful Mandarin adaptation.
It's a double-edged sword for sure, yet given the highly contentious nature of the big reveal, it's genuinely surprising that nobody let word slip before release.