Infinity War's Wakanda money shot was an ingenious fake out.
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00:00The Marvel Cinematic Universe has basically mastered the art of selling their epic tentpole
00:05movies, and while most of the time the MCU has succeeded by simply delivering the fun
00:10superhero thrills promised by their marketing, every so often they've gone out of their way
00:14to actively deceive fans. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 10
00:20Genius Misdirects in the MCU Movie Trailers.
00:2310. Bucky Shoots Rhodey Out of the Sky in Captain America Civil War
00:30This one's elegantly simple and required nothing more than a sneaky bit of editing,
00:35but it sure as hell got fans talking. The second trailer for Captain America Civil War seemed to
00:40show Bucky shooting Rhodey out of the sky, possibly killing him in the process. Given that the film
00:46was centred around the conflict between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, it absolutely tracked that Bucky
00:50shooting Rhodey would further heighten the emotional stakes of the fraught scenario.
00:54So what was there to doubt? Yet as it turned out, these shots were actually taken from different
00:59scenes entirely. Bucky was firing his gun from a scene much later in the movie, while Rhodey was
01:04shot out of the sky by Vision, who did it accidentally. For months, fans were wondering
01:09how the MCU could possibly walk back Bucky either gravely wounding or outright killing an Avenger,
01:14and the truth is simply that he didn't do it. 9. The Mandarin Fake Out in Iron Man 3
01:21Love it or hate it, the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3 is one of the most ingenious marketing
01:27sleights of hand the MCU has ever pulled off. The movie's trailers simply presented the Mandarin
01:32as a straight-up antagonist, a shadowy, ominous villain causing hell for Tony Stark, as played
01:37with deliciously sinister aplomb by the great Ben Kingsley. But midway through the film itself,
01:43this is revealed to be a total fake-out. Kingsley isn't in fact playing the Mandarin,
01:47but Trevor Slattery, an actor paid by the real Mandarin Aldrich Killian, to portray a larger-than-life
01:53smokescreen version of the supervillain. It was a completely shocking reveal that took basically
01:58everybody by surprise, even if it also understandably annoyed those fans hoping to
02:03finally see the Mandarin done full justice on the big screen. This wasn't the last time we saw either
02:09the Mandarin or Slattery in an MCU movie, though, as the 100% legit Mandarin going by the name Wenwu
02:15had a major antagonist role in Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, and a reformed Slattery
02:21also returned for a hilarious extended cameo.
02:248. Thanos' Infinity Stones in Avengers Infinity War
02:28The first of two incredibly smart misdirects in the trailers for Avengers Infinity War now.
02:34In order to keep audiences ignorant of the film's many surprises, Marvel Studios sneakily re-edited
02:40key shots from the trailers to ensure that even those who pored over every last frame of material
02:46couldn't quite be sure where things were going. Case in point, Infinity War's second trailer
02:50concluded with footage of Captain America managing to hold an Infinity Gauntlet wielding Thanos at bay.
02:56Fans quickly noticed that despite this fight scene appearing to be taken from the movie's climax,
03:01Thanos had just two of the Infinity Stones in the gauntlet, the Space and Power Stones,
03:06making it unclear precisely when in the film it actually took place.
03:10As it turns out, these shots and some others throughout the trailers were digitally manipulated
03:14to conceal how many Infinity Stones Thanos actually had.
03:18Of course, in reality, Thanos had collected five of the six stones by this point,
03:22but Marvel Studios understandably wanted to throw fans for a loop and ensure there was plenty
03:27to be surprised by when they finally saw the movie for themselves. I mean, it's very clever.
03:32Number 7. Zombie Strange looks like a villain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
03:39The trailers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness certainly cemented the movie's off-kilter
03:44tone, particularly as it pertained to the presence of two apparently nefarious variants of Doctor Strange.
03:50The trailers first introduced us to the mischievous Supreme Strange, who was cleverly shown coming to
03:55blows with our prime Doctor Strange. And later, trailers also showed glimpses of a grotesque,
04:00undead version of Strange, which fans quickly dubbed Zombie Strange, seemingly yet another
04:06malevolent variant that our Strange would have to face off against. Hilariously, this was actually
04:11not the case at all. Zombie Strange is in fact the reanimated corpse of Defender Strange,
04:15who dies at the beginning of the movie. His dead body is then possessed by Strange Prime in the
04:20third act in order to try and rescue America Chavez from Wanda. The context of Zombie Strange in the
04:26trailers and in the final movie are totally different, with the character ultimately being
04:30played more for perverse laughs, as Strange takes control of this decrepit, scarcely held-together
04:36shell of a person. Number 6. Wanda's Vision in Avengers Age of Ultron
04:41The marketing for Avengers Age of Ultron was criticised by many fans for wildly misrepresenting
04:47the film's tone, suggesting that it was a much darker Avengers sequel, only for the final product
04:53to be relatively light-hearted and Ultron to be far more of a comedic antagonist than expected.
04:58There was one clever editing flourish in the movie's first teaser trailer, though, which got fans
05:03relentlessly discussing the possibility that Ultron would deal massive, even fatal damage to the
05:08focal Avengers line-up. A single shot showed what appeared to be the corpse of Thor lying next to
05:14Captain America's broken shield, during what fans understandably assumed was one of the hero's
05:19clashes with Ultron. But in the film itself, this actually turns out to be a mere vision administered
05:24to Tony by Scarlet Witch, whereby Tony witnesses the Avengers' apparent defeat at the hands of the
05:29Chitauri from the first Avengers film. Hilariously, even as an illusion, it hasn't got anything to do with
05:35Ultron, yet was quite perfectly spliced into the movie's trailers to help establish an altogether
05:40drearier and more imposing vibe for the sequel's marketing.
05:44Number 5. The Missing Spider-Man in Spider-Man No Way Home
05:48Marvel Studios employed a frankly ridiculous level of restraint where the trailers for Spider-Man No
05:54Way Home were concerned, by refusing to share even a single fleeting blimps of Tobey Maguire and Andrew
05:59Garfield's returning iterations of Spider-Man. But they went further than even that, by literally
06:04erasing the pair from trailer shots taken from the movie's climax. Even though fans soon enough
06:10picked up on Lizard being kicked in the face by a seemingly invisible force, it was absolutely
06:14genius in ensuring that fans absolutely had to see the movie as soon as possible to confirm for
06:20themselves if Maguire and Garfield were really in it. Anyone who'd been even remotely following the
06:25movie's production knew the truth, and yet there was that 0.01% sliver of doubt that was so perfectly
06:32exploited by this weirdly vague scaled-back marketing. And the result was the most commercially
06:37successful film of the entire pandemic to date, confirming it was absolutely the right marketing
06:43approach.
06:44Number 4. Druig is the Big Bad in Eternals
06:48The various trailers and TV spots for Eternals didn't exactly make it clear who the movie's
06:54villain would be, though the smart money was unequivocally on Druig. The trailers showed fleeting
06:58glimpses of Druig both standing atop the burning ruins of an ancient Aztec city, Tenochtitlan,
07:04possibly having caused the inferno, and seemingly operating a cult of mind-controlled humans in the
07:09woods. Those two images certainly made him more immediately sus than any other Eternal,
07:14prompting intense fan speculation that he would turn on his fellow Eternals mid-movie and reveal
07:19his true nefarious intentions. But this actually turned out to be incredibly well-placed bait,
07:24as Druig actually breaks up the brutality at Tenochtitlan and mind-controls the villagers in
07:29order to help take down an attacking Deviant. The real backstabbing Eternal is later revealed to
07:33be Icarus, who has Ajak murdered while serving the Celestial Arishem. Barry Keoghan is just so damn
07:39good at playing unsettling characters that it wasn't hard to believe he'd be Eternal's turncoat
07:44character. But alas, the marketing played on our prejudices perfectly.
07:49Number 3. The Elementals are the antagonists in Spider-Man Far From Home
07:54Though even the most casual comic book fan was surely aware of Mysterio's status as a villain
07:59in the Spider-Man comics, the trailers for Spider-Man Far From Home tried their damnedest to
08:04convince us that we were getting a benevolent rebooted version. The trailers played up the
08:08presence of Mysterio as basically Peter Parker's new mentor, following Tony Stark's death in Avengers
08:14Endgame. A cool uncle, if you will. Given that the MCU has a history of remixing heroes and villains
08:19alike in their own image, it wasn't exactly a leap to believe that this Mysterio, from an alternate
08:24universe, could really be a hero, especially with the trailers showing off the antagonistic
08:28Elementals the Spidey and Mysterio to contend with. Yet halfway through the film, director John Watts
08:33violently pulls the rug out, revealing that Mysterio, aka Quinten Beck, is a disgruntled
08:38former employee of Stark Industries who has used advanced technology to depict himself as a superhero,
08:44with the Elementals in fact being advanced projections. Even though some fans suspected
08:49Mysterio was the primary antagonist all along, the trailers really worked hard to misdirect us,
08:55pointing to the big bad Elementals as the real villains. For both audiences and Peter himself,
09:00the Elementals were a distraction intended to prevent us from seeking Beck's own villainy.
09:062. The Wakanda Money Shot in Avengers Infinity War
09:10Perhaps not a single MCU marketing misdirect is as ingenious and committed as Avengers Infinity War,
09:18literally cooking up an insane fake trailer shot that didn't even appear in the damn movie.
09:22Infinity War's first trailer ended with the unforgettable glimpse of numerous key Avengers,
09:27including the Hulk, all running towards the screen with a massive army behind them in Wakanda.
09:32And while Infinity War does conclude with a huge Wakanda battle featuring most of the Avengers
09:37pictured, the heroes never team up for this sort of organised charge towards the Outriders. They're mostly
09:42sectioned off into their own individual fights throughout the battle. But most amusingly,
09:46the Hulk never actually appears in the fight, refusing to come out and join the battle after
09:50getting bodied by Thanos at the start of the film. Bruce Banner is then forced to don the Hulkbuster
09:55armour to take part in the fight, a fact that was brilliantly concealed by this shot. A shot so
10:00fantastic and expensive looking that nobody ever believed it wouldn't appear in the film.
10:051. The Disguised Timeskip in Avengers Endgame
10:10The trailers for Avengers Endgame ultimately disguised a hell of a lot, but the most surprising
10:15revelation that they cleverly concealed? The movie's sudden five-year time skip following its grim
10:21prologue sequence. Beyond easy tricks like not showing Bro Thor in the marketing, Marvel went to
10:26the lengths of using CGI to change the colour of Black Widow's hair in the trailers, altering it from red
10:32blonde back to the shorter platinum blonde bob she had in Infinity War and even altering her clothes
10:37to match. Though some fans suspected there might be a time skip of some sort, especially once later
10:43trailers showed off Natasha's real hairdo, Marvel did a fantastic job of creating so much confusion
10:48and inconsistency across their trailers for Endgame that it was extremely difficult to get a
10:53bead on exactly how much time had passed since Infinity War. And so when the five years later title
10:59card appeared in the movie proper, it was an all-timer holy-shit moment, as anyone who saw
11:04Endgame on opening weekend will surely remember. And that concludes our list. If you can think of
11:09any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below, and while you're there don't forget
11:13to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there,
11:17and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie
11:22with WhatCulture. I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.