Over the last decade and a half, if there was one particular franchise you could argue drove the rise of spoiler culture more than anything else, it was the MCU—and the Russo brothers, vanguards of the road to Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, were certainly at the core of that. But a lot’s changed in the years since, even as the Russos return to Marvel for Doomsday and Secret Wars… including how at least one of the directing duo feels about the way we’ve come to treat spoilers.
“On one hand, audiences want to be surprised, and that’s part of what makes the theatrical experience exciting. On the other hand, it can become a little overpoliced, where people are anxious about engaging with anything,” Joe Russo recently told Metro UK about his changing approach to spoiler culture. “We design these films to unfold in a certain way, and we want audiences to feel those moments as intended. But at the same time, you can’t control everything. You have to focus on making something that holds up beyond the initial surprise.”
It’s far flung from the time when Joe Russo and his brother were writing letters for Marvel to share online, complete with catchy hashtags begging people to not spoil the events of Infinity War and Endgame. But it’s a realization that there are few cultural events quite like that moment anymore that can really warrant such a heavy hand on monitoring discussion. No doubt Doomsday and Secret Wars want to bring back that kind of event (Marvel Studios itself certainly hopes they do), but even with the approach to Doomsday we’ve started to see how things change. The initial marketing has started earlier and more openly, from the grand, chair-laden reveal of its cast to the early teasers, all part of making the film feel more like an event compared to much else of Marvel’s recent output, but also ways to begin doling out material as early as possible to avoid it being revealed through leaks anyway.
Not that it’s stopped certain elements of Doomsday leaking already, like certain images of costuming, or promotional art of characters like Doctor Doom. But it’s a far cry from the days when Infinity War and Endgame were kept so secret that even their trailers had shots designed to obfuscate and throw people off from the actual events of the film. We’ve still got the rest of the year to see if Joe Russo’s own personal take on spoiler culture ends up changing just how much we really see of Doomsday before it hits theaters.
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