Kevin Feige Says Spider-Man: No Way Home Proved That MCU Movies Can Withstand Spoiler Leaks
To keep its movies from feeling like a mere promotional afterthought — spoiled and dissected to death online before they've even had their day in the theatrical sun — Marvel Studios has had its actors tell some white lies, and it has tried to do some misdirection in trailers. One example of this is when trailers showed Hulk on the ground in Wakanda in "Avengers: Infinity War," instead of Bruce Banner in Iron Man's Hulkbuster armor (which is what audiences wound up seeing in the multiplex).
However, even when Marvel digitally removed two Spider-Men from the Brazilian trailer for "Spider-Man: No Way Home," in order to preserve the surprise of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's appearance in the film, the internet was wise to the studio's game. It had already figured out that Maguire and Garfield would be in the movie, and by now, it's common knowledge that they are, with the latest official clips and trailers on the verified Spider-Man YouTube channel openly advertising it.
/Film's Jacob Hall recently attended a press conference where producer Kevin Feige discussed Marvel's effort to make "No Way Home" so good as to be spoiler-proof, in spite of any leaks that might be floating around out there. Feige said:
"You need to make sure that the experience itself works, regardless of what has been spoiled or not. We still do as good a job as we can, and I think a lot of people are getting good at not spreading it — you know, somebody steals something, don't spread it around because it just potentially lessens the experience. but in a lot of ways, 'No Way Home' proved that it did not lessen the experience. So we will continue to do the best that we can, but the most important thing is [that] the movie or show delivers regardless of what you know going in."
Spoilers don't always ruin everything
Feige talks about people stealing things and spreading them around, and that's certainly one way spoilers might make their way online. Anytime a new Marvel movie comes down the pike, however, its actual release in theaters will be preceded by a slew of analysis based on the marketing for it. Beyond that, you also have unofficial set photos, advance toy images, and social media chatter, all of which helps spoilers and other plot details circulate, making it very difficult to go into said movie on opening day without already having parts of it mapped out in your head.
In my own experience, there have been times where inadvertently seeing a spoiler actually hooked me and made me more interested in watching a movie or TV show. I might never have watched the first season of "Game of Thrones," for instance, if I hadn't heard about a certain shocking character death beforehand. On the other hand, there have been times, as with the Japanese film "Audition," where not knowing anything about a movie beforehand undeniably made for a better viewing experience.
In the end, there's no hard-and-fast binary rule that says spoilers are good or bad — unless you want there to be. Some have even argued on behalf of embracing spoilers. For anyone who writes about movies or just reads about them a lot, spoilers might simply be an occupational hazard.
Personally, since "No Way Home" came out three weeks late where I live, I did have it spoiled for me by a random headline I saw on Twitter. So I already knew about the other Spider-Men joining Tom Holland, and it did deflate the joy of that would-be surprise a little in the theater. The movie was entertaining enough, though, to overcome that, and as long as Marvel Studios keeps turning out crowd-pleasers, its future success is probably safe from being undone by spoilers.