Doomsday Trailers Are Using The Same Trick As Infinity War

In the modern entertainment content sphere, movie trailers often act as powerful lightning rods for discussion, dissection, and theory. That’s certainly true for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has never had any trouble racking up millions of views on trailers. But the Avengers movies have always fallen into a class of their own when it comes to generating hype with trailers.

The marketing for Avengers: Doomsday has been unique in that regard. From the movie set chair reveal of the main cast to the staggered teaser trailers, Marvel has taken a different approach due to Doomsday’s presumed multiversal narrative that will bring dozens of Marvel heroes together. However, the recent teaser trailers have me convinced that the upcoming über-blockbuster may be borrowing a strategy from a previous Avengers movie.

Avengers Infinity War trailer fake footage

The Russo brothers used some sleight-of-hand in the trailers for Avengers: Infinity War due to the unique nature of its gargantuan cast of characters. With so many potential puzzle pieces out there for people to fit together and theorize incessantly about, the Russos edited and even shot and rehearsed some fake scenes to maintain secrecy about the movie’s plot, specifically its show-stopping final moments.

The most infamous of these scenes is the one above, which saw Steve Rogers leading a group of heroes charging at the camera. He’s trailed by the Hulk, who notably did not make an appearance in Infinity War’s climactic battle in Wakanda. His insertion in the trailer preserved the important plot point of Thanos beating the Hulk so badly he refused to take over Bruce Banner’s body for the final conflict.

There are other examples as well, including clever pieces of editing, shot framing, or slightly different pieces of action and dialogue that helped maintain audience surprise. The Russos’ trickery achieved the desired effect, as the in-theater experience of Thanos’ successful snap and its devastating effects was second-to-none at the time.

I’m Convinced The Avengers: Doomsday Trailers Are Using Scenes Not In The Film

Chris Evans' Steve Rogers looking at his son in Avengers: Doomsday
Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers looking at his son in Avengers: Doomsday

With two Avengers: Doomsday teaser trailers already released online and rumors of a secret fifth trailer in the ether, I’m now convinced that the Russos are pulling the bait-and-switch on us again. To be clear, I value the in-theater surprise as much as anyone else, so I don’t feel duped or cheated by the deception, but I definitely think there is reason to believe the teasers we’ve been shown don’t actually contain real movie footage.

For starters, the views of the characters we’ve seen so far in Steve Rogers and Thor are strikingly similar. Both heroes are shown with their children—Steve’s child with Peggy Carter and Thor’s adopted daughter, Love. It’s clearly meant to show what’s at stake in their battle with Dr. Doom, and is meant to ratchet up the stakes of the movie before we’ve even seen the villain himself.

The Thor trailer deepens the perceived danger, as it features a voice-over of a prayer from Thor to his father and the other gods who hold sway over the cosmos; Doom is enough to make a god take to prayer himself. However, both trailers seem more to act as tone-setters than actual teases of what’s to come.

With so much secrecy around the movie’s plot still intact, it makes sense that the early teasers could include scenes specifically shot for the trailers, or that could be hiding a secret meaning based if they’re edited or taken out of context. Avengers: Doomsday is set to be the biggest superhero movie since Endgame, and with almost a year to go before its release date, it makes total sense that the Russos would be playing trailer tricks again.