Avengers: Endgame isn't just any ordinary movie; it's the culmination of a 22-movie
saga which Iron Man kicked off 11 years ago in 2008.
And secrecy around anything for the fourth Avengers movie has been incredibly tight,
with trailers mostly showing footage from early parts of the movie and many critics
only getting to see the finished film just days before release.
But that still didn't stop one of the MCU's awesome but most spoilerific actors Mark Ruffalo
from accidentally revealing the end of the movie several weeks before it hit cinemas.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and today I'm revealing how everyone's favourite Hulk,
Mark Ruffalo, let slip a massive spoiler for Endgame during the movie's press tour.
Obviously, spoilers ahead, so take care if you haven't seen the film yet.
With the emergence of Thanos as a seemingly unstoppable villain in Avengers: Infinity
War where he snapped half of all life away, the stakes for Avengers: Endgame grew massively.
So, to try and stop spoilers from leaking, Marvel employed stricter controls than ever,
such as only giving partial scripts to actors notorious for spilling spoilers and filming
multiple endings so they wouldn't know which was the real one.
For example, Mark Ruffalo told E! News that he shot different endings for Endgame:
"I'm like shot five different endings to this movie.
Really?
I didn't even get a whole script to this movie.
I don't know why.
The script I did get had... had dummy scenes in it."
In fact, Mark's co-star Chris Evans, who plays Captain America, joked that Marvel didn't
have faith in Ruffalo's ability to stop himself from leaking major plot points:
"They have to throw Mark off the scent.
Why?
Because you have zero cred.
What?!
You have earned no trust in the Marvel universe.
I've like...
You leak like a bodily function.
You mean, like I need a diaper?
Ah right!
Now that was good!"
The truth is that Mark does have form, with the actor accidentally revealing the end of
Infinity War many months before the film was released.
It happened during an interview which Good Morning America carried out with Mark and
Don Cheadle, who plays War Machine, at Disney's D23 Expo [in 2017].
"Can I say it?
No!
Can I just give them a little.. a little taste?
I wouldn't say too much.. but you can say as much as..
I mean, hey, it's your career.
Let me just say this..
Wait till you see this next one.
Ha...
Everybody dies.
Dude!
Dude...!
Not everybody.
Was that...?
Am I in trouble?
A little.
Is Barry gonna be mad at me?
Dude, I wouldn't...
I... just move on."
The 'Barry' Mark mentions at the end of that clip is Barry Curtis, the head of Marvel security,
who cameo-ed as the mall security guard in Captain Marvel's movie!
By the way, did you notice how, just before Mark said 'everyone dies', he sounded like
he was about to say the word 'half', which would have been an even bigger slip given
the snap only dusted half our heroes, not all of them!
But that wasn't the end of Mark's spoilers, there were more to come!
In early April, many weeks before Endgame was released at the end of the month, in his
interview with E! News, Mark went right ahead and accidentally revealed that Chris Evans's
Captain America got married at the end of Endgame.
"Wait, is that for real, you guy's shot..?
Mark's a real liability.
He gets married in this!"
In the film, after the Avengers have defeated Thanos, Steve Rogers goes on one last mission
to return the Infinity Stones to where they were taken from in the timeline.
But Steve makes a detour during his time travels and when he returns to the present timeline,
he's an old man and we discover he's now wearing a wedding ring.
And the very last scene of the movie reveals that when Steve went back in time, he took
the opportunity to marry his long-lost love Peggy Carter.
With Chris Evans's Marvel contract finishing, fans were theorising for months before the
release of Endgame whether the movie would truly mark Steve Rogers' final appearance
as Captain America in the MCU and, if so, whether Steve would retire or die in battle
against Thanos.
Fortunately though, Steve got his happy ending with Peggy.
It's always fun to watch Mark Ruffalo during press tours, and we're certainly big fans
of his acting in general and, of course, his brilliant take on Bruce Banner and Hulk in
the MCU.
But although Marvel were still under strict lockdown when Mark accidentally revealed Cap's
final fate in Endgame weeks before the film's release..
"He gets married in this!" ..it's worth mentioning that, at the time
of both the Endgame and Infinity War interviews, none of us actually knew what the endings
to the movies really were.
So, if you saw his Endgame interview, first of all you might not have even taken in exactly
what he said, and if you did, you might still have taken it with a pinch of salt.
After all, he always seems so relaxed and jovial that you wonder whether he's just messing
with us with his spoilers.
So, revisiting his old interviews after we've seen the movies to find out just how much
he was actually spoiling, is really just a bit of fun!
Even Marvel themselves have seen the funny and sometimes positive side of it.
Speaking to EW recently, Mark said that Marvel's head security honcho, Barry, actually congratulated
him on his genius after he accidentally live-streamed the audio for the first 10 minutes of Thor:
Ragnarok, as "[They] got more press than [they] could have possibly paid for!"
And in fact, many Marvel fans love trying to figure out spoilers and plot details by
analysing trailers, TV spots, toys, and other leaks well before the movie comes out.
But what's really interesting is the extent to which for Avengers: Endgame, Marvel digitally
manipulated over 20 different scenes in the trailers to avoid spoiler reveals by using
misdirection.
I've actually made a video about all those fake scenes plus other deleted scenes in Endgame
which you can tap in the top right of the screen to watch, and there's a special Avengers
giveaway on that video.
So, what do you think about Mark Ruffalo's latest leak?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below and make sure you also subscribe and hit the
bell to enter my latest Marvel giveaway.
Tap left to check out those Endgame deleted and fake scenes or tap right for how Iron
Man predicted the ending of Endgame in his very first movie.
And if you enjoyed this, a thumbs-up and a share are hugely appreciated.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!