The True History Of Movie Spoilers
A Lie Agreed Upon: Spoiler Disinformation
In modern times, over the last decade in particular, the pervasiveness of plot leaks and free-standing online spoilers has led to movie studios taking some creative approaches to curbing the cat being let out of the bag.
Beyond merely asking fans to respect their fellow cinemagoers and keeping quiet about what happens, studios have opted to flat-out misrepresent portions of a film for the sake of its eventual payoff.
The trailers for Avengers: Infinity War, for instance, digitally altered shots of Thanos (Josh Brolin) holding the Infinity Gauntlet to conceal how many stones he'd actually collected by this point, and the epic money shot of the heroes running through the forest in Wakanda was ultimately a pure marketing fabrication, appearing in neither Infinity War nor Endgame.
Marvel Studios even went to the lengths of only giving Endgame's full script to Robert Downey Jr., ensuring that many of the film's central cast members weren't entirely sure of the full context, and therefore were unable to let their loose lips give the game away.
More controversially, some filmmakers have just opted to lie to fans in a desperate attempt to keep the lid on the mystery box.
Despite everyone figuring out that Benedict Cumberbatch would be playing legendary Trek villain Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness almost a year before the film came out, director J.J Abrams swore blind that this wasn't the case...until the film hit cinemas and that was exactly what happened.
More often than not, an audience's willingness to be deceived and misled will hinge entirely on whether or not the big reveal is actually worth it.
Infinity War and Endgame's marquee moments all hit the mark splendidly, while Star Trek Into Darkness' Khan reveal was conversely totally deflating, because the film played it for shocks despite most audience members having talked the point to death months before.
Elsewhere, when it turned out that Rhino (Paul Giamatti) only had a cameo in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the money shot from the trailers was actually the film's final, sequel-baiting shot, audiences felt duped and tricked in a way that wasn't entertaining.
It treated them like idiots, and was completely counter to, say, the Russo brothers misleading Marvel fans regarding the number of stones in Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet.
It's important to remember, however, that while studios have an obvious vested interest not to have their potential customers spoiled before they even make it to the cinema, there is a nefarious side to this, where studios can co-opt a fearful spoiler culture in an attempt to cover up a film's deficiencies...
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