Infinity War's Wakanda money shot was an ingenious fake out.
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00:00 The Marvel Cinematic Universe has basically mastered the art of selling their epic tentpole
00:05 movies, and while most of the time the MCU has succeeded by simply delivering the fun
00:09 superhero thrills promised by their marketing, every so often they've gone out of their
00:14 way to actively deceive fans.
00:16 So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 10 genius misdirects
00:21 in the MCU movie trailers.
00:24 10. Bucky Shoots Rhodey Out of the Sky in Captain America Civil War
00:31 This one's elegantly simple and required nothing more than a sneaky bit of editing,
00:35 but it sure as hell got fans talking.
00:37 The second trailer for Captain America Civil War seemed to show Bucky shooting Rhodey out
00:42 of the sky, possibly killing him in the process.
00:45 Given that the film was centred around the conflict between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers,
00:48 it absolutely tracked that Bucky shooting Rhodey would further heighten the emotional
00:52 stakes of the fraught scenario.
00:54 So what was there to doubt?
00:56 Yet as it turned out, these shots were actually taken from different scenes entirely.
01:00 Bucky was firing his gun from a scene much later in the movie, while Rhodey was shot
01:04 out of the sky by Vision, who did it accidentally.
01:07 For months, fans were wondering how the MCU could possibly walk back Bucky either gravely
01:12 wounding or outright killing an Avenger, and the truth is simply that he didn't do it.
01:17 9. The Mandarin Fakeout in Iron Man 3
01:22 Love it or hate it, the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3 is one of the most ingenious marketing
01:26 sleights of hand the MCU has ever pulled off.
01:29 The movie's trailers simply presented the Mandarin as a straight-up antagonist, a shadowy,
01:34 ominous villain causing hell for Tony Stark, as played with deliciously sinister aplomb
01:39 by the great Ben Kingsley.
01:41 But midway through the film itself, this is revealed to be a total fakeout.
01:45 Kingsley isn't in fact playing the Mandarin, but Trevor Slattery, an actor paid by the
01:49 real Mandarin Aldrich Killian.
01:51 To portray a larger-than-life, smoke-screen version of the supervillain.
01:55 It was a completely shocking reveal that took basically everybody by surprise, even if it
02:00 also understandably annoyed those fans hoping to finally see the Mandarin done full justice
02:06 on the big screen.
02:07 This wasn't the last time we saw either the Mandarin or Slattery in an MCU movie, though,
02:11 as the 100% legit Mandarin going by the name Wenwu had a major antagonist role in Shang
02:17 Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and a reformed Slattery also returned for a hilarious
02:22 extended cameo.
02:24 8.
02:25 Thanos' Infinity Stones in Avengers Infinity War
02:29 The first of two incredibly smart misdirects in the trailers for Avengers Infinity War
02:34 now.
02:35 In order to keep audiences ignorant of the film's many surprises, Marvel Studios sneakily
02:39 re-edited key shots from the trailers to ensure that even those who pored over every last
02:44 frame of material couldn't quite be sure where things were going.
02:48 Case in point, Infinity War's second trailer concluded with footage of Captain America
02:52 managing to hold an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Thanos at bay.
02:56 Fans quickly noticed that, despite this fight scene appearing to be taken from the movie's
03:00 climax, Thanos had just two of the Infinity Stones in the gauntlet, the Space and Power
03:05 Stones, making it unclear precisely when in the film it actually took place.
03:10 As it turns out, these shots and some others throughout the trailers were digitally manipulated
03:14 to conceal how many Infinity Stones Thanos actually had.
03:18 Of course, in reality, Thanos had collected five of the six stones by this point, but
03:22 Marvel Studios understandably wanted to throw fans for a loop and ensure there was plenty
03:27 to be surprised by when they finally saw the movie for themselves.
03:30 It's very clever.
03:32 7.
03:33 Zombie Strange Looks Like A Villain In Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness
03:39 The trailers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness certainly cemented the movie's
03:43 off-kilter tone, particularly as it pertained to the presence of two apparently nefarious
03:48 variants of Doctor Strange.
03:50 The trailers first introduced us to the mischievous Supreme Strange, who was cleverly shown coming
03:55 to blows with our prime Doctor Strange.
03:57 And later, trailers also showed glimpses of a grotesque undead version of Strange, which
04:02 fans quickly dubbed Zombie Strange, seemingly yet another malevolent variant that our Strange
04:08 would have to face off against.
04:09 Hilariously, this was actually not the case at all.
04:12 Zombie Strange is in fact the reanimated corpse of Defender Strange, who dies at the beginning
04:16 of the movie.
04:17 His dead body is then possessed by Strange Prime in the third act in order to try and
04:22 rescue America Chavez from Wanda.
04:24 The context of Zombie Strange in the trailers and in the final movie are totally different,
04:29 with the character ultimately being played more for perverse laughs, as Strange takes
04:33 control of this decrepit, scarcely held together shell of a person.
04:37 6.
04:39 Avengers' Vision in Avengers Age of Ultron
04:42 The marketing for Avengers Age of Ultron was criticised by many fans for wildly misrepresenting
04:47 the film's tone, suggesting that it was a much darker Avengers sequel, only for the
04:52 final product to be relatively light-hearted and Ultron to be far more of a comedic antagonist
04:57 than expected.
04:58 There was one clever editing flourish in the movie's first teaser trailer, though, which
05:02 got fans relentlessly discussing the possibility that Ultron would deal massive, even fatal
05:07 damage to the focal Avengers line-up.
05:09 A single shot showed what appeared to be the corpse of Thor lying next to Captain America's
05:14 broken shield during what fans understandably assumed was one of the hero's clashes with
05:19 Ultron.
05:20 But in the film itself, this actually turns out to be a mere vision administered to Tony
05:24 by Scarlet Witch, whereby Tony witnesses the Avengers' apparent defeat at the hands of
05:29 the Chitauri from the first Avengers film.
05:32 Hilariously, even as an illusion, it hasn't got anything to do with Ultron, yet was quite
05:36 perfectly spliced into the movie's trailers to help establish an altogether drearier and
05:41 more imposing vibe for the sequel's marketing.
05:44 5.
05:45 The Missing Spider-Man in Spider-Man No Way Home
05:48 Marvel Studios employed a frankly ridiculous level of restraint where the trailers for
05:52 Spider-Man No Way Home were concerned, by refusing to share even a single fleeting glimpse of
05:57 Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's returning iterations of Spider-Man.
06:01 But they went further than even that by literally erasing the pair from trailer shots taken
06:07 from the movie's climax.
06:08 Even though fans soon enough picked up on Lizard being kicked in the face by a seemingly
06:12 invisible force, it was absolutely genius in ensuring that fans absolutely had to see
06:17 the movie as soon as possible to confirm for themselves if Maguire and Garfield were really
06:22 in it.
06:23 Anyone who'd been even remotely following the movie's production knew the truth, and
06:27 yet there was that 0.01% sliver of doubt that was so perfectly exploited by this weirdly
06:33 vague scaled-back marketing.
06:35 And the result was the most commercially successful film of the entire pandemic to date, confirming
06:40 it was absolutely the right marketing approach.
06:44 4.
06:45 Druig is the Big Bad in Eternals The various trailers and TV spots for Eternals
06:51 didn't exactly make it clear who the movie's villain would be, though the smart money was
06:55 unequivocally on Druig.
06:57 The trailers showed fleeting glimpses of Druig both standing atop the burning ruins of an
07:02 ancient Aztec city, Tenochtitlan, possibly having caused the inferno, and seemingly operating
07:07 a cult of mind-controlled humans in the woods.
07:09 Those two images certainly made him more immediately sus than any other Eternal, prompting intense
07:14 fan speculation that he would turn on his fellow Eternals mid-movie and reveal his true
07:19 nefarious intentions.
07:21 But this actually turned out to be incredibly well-placed bait, as Druig actually breaks
07:25 up the brutality at Tenochtitlan and mind-controls the villagers in order to help take down an
07:30 attacking deviant.
07:31 The real backstabbing Eternal is later revealed to be Icarus, who has Ajak murdered while
07:36 serving the celestial Arishem.
07:38 Barry Keoghan is just so damn good at playing unsettling characters that it wasn't hard
07:42 to believe he'd be Eternals' turncoat character.
07:44 But alas, the marketing played on our prejudices perfectly.
07:48 3.
07:49 The Elementals are the antagonists in Spider-Man Far From Home
07:54 Though even the most casual comic book fan was surely aware of Mysterio's status as
07:58 a villain in the Spider-Man comics, the trailers for Spider-Man Far From Home tried their damnedest
08:04 to convince us that we were getting a benevolent rebooted version.
08:07 The trailers played up the presence of Mysterio as basically Peter Parker's new mentor following
08:12 Tony Stark's death in Avengers Endgame.
08:14 A cool uncle, if you will.
08:16 Given that the MCU has a history of remixing heroes and villains alike in their own image,
08:20 it wasn't exactly a leap to believe that this Mysterio from an alternate universe could
08:24 really be a hero, especially with the trailers showing off the antagonistic Elementals for
08:29 Spidey and Mysterio to contend with.
08:31 Yet halfway through the film, director John Watts violently pulls the rug out, revealing
08:35 that Mysterio, aka Quentin Beck, is a disgruntled former employee of Stark Industries who has
08:41 used advanced technology to depict himself as a superhero, with the Elementals in fact
08:46 being advanced projections.
08:48 Even though some fans suspected Mysterio was the primary antagonist all along, the trailers
08:52 really worked hard to misdirect us, pointing to the big bad Elementals as the real villains.
08:58 For both audiences and Peter himself, the Elementals were a distraction intended to
09:02 prevent us from seeking Beck's own villainy.
09:06 2.
09:07 The Wakanda Money Shot in Avengers Infinity War
09:10 Perhaps not a single MCU marketing misdirect is as ingenious and committed as Avengers
09:16 Infinity War, literally cooking up an insane fake trailer shot that didn't even appear
09:21 in the damn movie.
09:23 Infinity War's first trailer ended with the unforgettable glimpse of numerous key Avengers,
09:27 including the Hulk, all running towards the screen with a massive army behind them in
09:31 Wakanda.
09:32 And while Infinity War does conclude with a huge Wakanda battle featuring most of the
09:36 Avengers pictured, the heroes never team up for this sort of organised charge towards
09:40 the Outriders.
09:41 They're mostly sectioned off into their own individual fights throughout the battle.
09:45 But most amusingly, the Hulk never actually appears in the fight, refusing to come out
09:49 and join the battle after getting bodied by Thanos at the start of the film.
09:53 Bruce Banner is then forced to don the Hulkbuster armour to take part in the fight, a fact that
09:57 was brilliantly concealed by this shot.
10:00 A shot so fantastic and expensive looking that nobody ever believed it wouldn't appear
10:04 in the film.
10:06 1.
10:07 The Disguised Time Skip in Avengers Endgame
10:10 The trailers for Avengers Endgame ultimately disguised a hell of a lot, but the most surprising
10:15 revelation that they cleverly concealed?
10:18 The movie's sudden five year time skip following its grim prologue sequence.
10:22 Beyond easy tricks like not showing Bro Thor in the marketing, Marvel went to the lengths
10:26 of using CGI to change the colour of Black Widow's hair in the trailers, altering it
10:31 from red blonde back to the shorter platinum blonde bob she had in Infinity War, and even
10:36 altering her clothes to match.
10:38 Though some fans suspected there might be a time skip of some sort, especially once
10:42 later trailers showed off Natasha's real hairdo, Marvel did a fantastic job of creating
10:47 so much confusion and inconsistency across their trailers for Endgame that it was extremely
10:52 difficult to get a bead on exactly how much time had passed since Infinity War.
10:56 And so when the five years later title card appeared in the movie proper, it was an all-time
11:01 a holy shit moment as anyone who saw Endgame on opening weekend will surely remember.
11:07 And that concludes our list.
11:08 If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below and while
11:12 you're there don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:15 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there and I can be found across various social medias
11:19 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:21 I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real
11:25 soon.