When was the last time a Marvel Cinematic Universe project arrived shrouded in complete and utter secrecy? It’s okay if you don’t remember, because there’s a huge number of longtime franchise fans that would end up drawing a blank, too.
After all, things seem to have been greatly exacerbated in the age of COVID, as remote post-production work coupled with the insatiable desire social media has to have every new film or television title spoiled weeks ahead of time has seen virtually every Phase Four offering leak at least one spoiler well ahead of time.
Whether it’s Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Illuminati in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Daredevil in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, or his longtime rival Kingpin’s return in Hawkeye, none of these potentially jaw-dropping surprises registered the way they should, because a huge volume of people knew going in what they were going to get.
In fact, a recent report indicated that Marvel headquarters even has a top-secret room called the “Black Widow Room”, which is used specifically to talk shop without an internet connection or even a window in sight. Needless to say, fans were quick to question the point in all of this, when spoilers are still making the rounds long before they should.
Kevin Smith hinted that Marvel has a secret police who deliberately dispense false information to root out moles, while Secret Invasion star Kingsley Ben-Adir confirmed spoiler training was part of his induction. The Black Widow Room may sound ominous, but it hasn’t exactly been entirely successful given how much information we always end up knowing before Kevin Feige deems it necessary.