If any MCU fans were to glimpse at the trending topics on various social media platforms yesterday, they would be forgiven for thinking that Marvel had just released the first looks at both Avengers: Doomsday and the upcoming fourth Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movie, Brand New Day.
And while there did seem to be a potato-quality copies of those previews swinging around the web, Marvel certainly didn’t release them.
There appear to be multiple teasers for Doomsday on the horizon, each focusing on a different character. The long-standing rumor pointed at Avatar: Fire and Ash as the logical launching point, and as that movie flies into theaters, those theories seem to be bearing out. And while the teasers are limited to playing in theaters, more and more moviegoers have been filming the previews to share them online ahead of official release.
The deal with Spidey is even sketchier. Purportedly a cellphone video capturing footage from a market research app, the leaked trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day became the topic of conversation on the nerdier corners of the internet earlier this week. Do those pixel represent Sadie Sink’s character? Does that blob there confirm the casting of X-Men’s the Blob?? Do I need to get a new prescription for my glasses?!?
The leaks were the latest in a series of premature disclosures for next year’s biggest movies, coming months after shoddy bootlegs of Christopher Nolan’s theatrical-only preview of The Odyssey appeared online.
With some of the most anticipated pieces of movie marketing suddenly popping up online, there seems to have been a shift in how this information finds its way out into the world. So what is going on? While we wait for the official releases of these trailers — or at the very least until we can go see what’s playing before Avatar: Fire and Ash — here are some (admittedly cranky) theories about why these leaks keep happening.
No one can wait for anything
Going hand and hand with the idea that content online shouldn’t need to be paid for, there’s a prevailing notion that if a piece of media exists, people are entitled to it. Whether the trailer is ready or to the liking of the filmmakers doesn’t matter. This kind of thinking is also what has led to the rise of “scoop” reporting in pop culture that is actually just sharing plot details before a book, movie, or series is released.
People have phones and aren’t shy about using them
TikTok was awash with Wicked: For Good clips, filmed on phones, the same weekend that it opened in theaters. An Instagram post with a movie’s title card is a common occurrence. Post pandemic, the use of phones in theaters has gone tacitly permitted by the national chains that a happy anyone’s showing up at all, even though it sucks and is objectively bad.
Clout chasers will chase clout
If the Brand New Day teaser was, in fact, recorded off of a protected market research app, the culprit is going to be found. Whether that person considered that or not is unclear, but what they did think about was the shine they’d get from being the person who delivered the first look at the preview to the world.
Note: This story was original published on Dec. 17 and updated on Dec. 18.