Often when a major superhero blockbuster is about to come out, filmmakers will adjust
certain shots in trailers in order to avoid spoiling details about the upcoming film.
While this is a common practice, moviegoers after the fact will be surprised at the alterations,
and some have even felt a little disappointed by it.
So today, we’re taking a closer look at Marvel films from the MCU that have used this
very tactic, with our list of the top 10 marvel trailers that lied to us.
And heads up – there’s spoilers for multiple recent MCU films on this list.
You’ve been warned!
10 Captain America: Civil War Civil War was arguably the second biggest
crossover event in the history of the MCU at the time of it’s release - the first
Avengers film being the first major crossover event.
Everyone was slated to be in it, and fans familiar with the Civil War story event in
the comics knew that heroes would be forced to pick sides based on whose ideology they
believed in - Captain America or Iron Man’s.
It turned friends into foes, and was a critical turning point in the MCU, causing Cap and
Tony’s friendship to fall apart in a way that seemed almost unforgivable.
At the end of the first major trailer for the film, fans lost their sh*t when Spider-Man
appeared, grabbing Cap’s shield.
At this point, we knew tom Holland would be playing the hero, but his appearance in Civil
War made fans super hyped.
In order to keep Spider-Man’s involvement in Civil War shrouded in mystery, certain
shots from the battle at the airport that were included in the trailer for the film
purposely removed Spider-Man, including that famous stare down sequence before the battle
begins.
9 Spider-Man Homecoming In the trailer for the film, we see a shot
of Iron Man and Spider-Man soaring through a city together, in what appears to be pulled
from an action sequence.
This never actually happened.
While Iron Man does appear in the movie, he never fights alongside Peter Parker.
Rather, he chastises Peter after saving him.
And Tony is never actually physically present - he’s at a wedding, using the suit to communicate
to Peter while he essentially multitasks.
That in itself is a great scene, although some were disappointed that we wouldn’t
get to see Peter and Tony fighting alongside one another like we had previously seen in
Civil War.
8 Captain Marvel This one ain’t all that bad, and to be fair,
it’s misleading with a purpose.
Much of the Captain Marvel promotion, including the trailers, specifically portrayed the Skrulls
as the antagonists of the film.
While many an eager fan speculated that there would be a twist and ultimately the Kree,
aka Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg would be the villain, for most, the surprise that the Skrull race
were actually the victims of the Kree’s attempted genocide turned out to be quite
a big reveal.
7 Deadpool 2 – Ex Force Another criticism of the Deadpool trailer
was that it made Cable look like the film’s primary antagonist, which wasn’t the case
- fans of Cable and Deadpool know the two ultimately end up working together, so at
least when people watched the film, that didn’t come as a huge reveal in the long run.
6 Logan Speaking of non-MCU films, but still Marvel
based properties, let’s take a look at the most critically acclaimed of the Fox bunch,
Logan.
The film saw Logan in the future looking after X-23, a young girl who was created using his
DNA.
While the film was largely inspired by certain aspects of the famous Old Man Logan comic,
it looked as if the film itself would be set in a post-apocalyptic like the comic world
thanks to the initial trailer.
That wasn’t really the case.
While it made it clear that the last several years haven’t been the most forgiving for
mutant-kind, the film definitely didn’t venture into the territory that Old Man Logan
did, much to some fans dismay.
Regardless though, it’s still considered one of the best superhero films to date.
5 Avengers Age of Ultron Multiple shots were altered to hide certain
characters involvement in the major end scene of the film.
The Avengers group shot, a callback to the first Avengers film, was edited so that Scarlet
Witch, Quicksilver and Vision were removed from that particular part of the frame, instead
inserting Natasha’s Black Widow and Clint’s Hawkeye closer to the middle on the right
side of Thor (on his left).
4 Thor Ragnarok When looking at a comparison between the film
and the trailer for Thor Ragnarok, the majority of the differences between the two are alternate
shots being used in the trailer, and certain VFX elements missing or removed.
The famous shot of Hela holding up Mjolnir was altered - it made it appear as if the
scene took place in Asgard, when really, it was in Norway.
Skurge, the executioner, who was played by Karl Urban, was largely removed from shots
that in the film, he appeared in with Hela.
A lot of the shots featuring Valkyrie were altered in terms of her surroundings, presumably
to keep her story arc in the film a mystery to fans.
Most famously though, the trailer had been altered to hide the fact that Thor had lost
an eye - an act of violence he endured courtesy of his sister, Hela, played by Cate Blanchett.
3 Iron Man 3 Iron Man 3 is often considered to be one of
the most notoriously misleading trailers of all time.
This is because the trailers promote Ben Kingsley as the villain of the film - the Mandarin,
who, in the comics, is considered to be one of Iron Man’s greatest foes.
But the trailer was covering for a massive twist in the film - the Mandarin is actually
just a drunken actor named Trevor Slattery, and not the real threat.
He’s just a theatrical propaganda piece used by Aldritch Killian of AIM.
2 END GAME There was a whole lot of spoilers that the
Endgame trailers had to cover their tracks for.
Let’s just go over a few - the shot of the Avengers walking up to the time machine was
initially altered to leave Tony out of the lineup, in an effort to not ruin early on
that he would obviously be rescued from space.
Thor’s appearance was changed - any one who has seen Endgame knows that Thor is physically
very different after the five year time jump, having significantly more hair, a longer beard,
and quite the belly.
The trailers didn’t included any shots of Professor Hulk, who is more prominently in
the film than Bruce Banner is, who was featured in the trailers.
The trailer removed Ant-Man’s giant man form from a shot that involved Rhodey and
Rocket.
And of course, there’s the shot of Steve crying in the trailer, which in the film occurs
after Black Widow has died, and in the frame, he’s actually joined by Tony.
1 INFINITY WAR Perhaps the most infamous trailer to leave
out information and alter shots are the ones for Avengers Infinity War.
To be fair, leading up to the film, we knew there would be a massive confrontation with
Thanos.
But the extent of that confrontation, and the utter despair that came from Thanos overpowering
the Avengers and ultimately succeeding at the end of the film was heart wrenching, unexpected,
and totally could not under any circumstances be spoiled.
Fans will theorize about upcoming MCU titles long before trailers even drop, so keeping
the speculation on Thanos’ victory at a minimal was likely ideal for Marvel Studios.
Anywho, let’s take a look at some of the things that were altered.
The shot of Captain America holding back Thanos’s fist (the one wearing the infinity gauntlet)
was changed in order to hide how many stones Thanos had collected.
In the film by that scene, Thanos was only missing the Time Stone before confronting
the Avengers in an attempt to get the Mind Stone.
There’s a shot in a forest where all of the Avengers are collectively charging forward,
including the Hulk.
That wasn’t the case - the major charging only occurred on the battlefield outside of
the forests of Wakanda, and Bruce Banner was never able to successfully transform into
the hulk in the film, causing him to use the Hulk Buster suit instead.
And additional shots of Tony in New York when he faces Ebony Maw with Doctor Strange, Wong
and Bruce altered his outfit so that we didn’t see him in his Iron Man suit.
There’s much more than that - many of the backgrounds were altered to keep locations
within the story a secret, and as many keen eyes will notice, the trailer at times used
different takes, different colour correction and less polished versions of certain VFX
builds.
There we have it friends!
What times specifically in any of the MCU trailers were you super hyped over, only to
watch the film and be disappointed they were changed, or didn’t even exist at all?
Give us a shout in those comments below and share all of your feels.
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