‘Avengers: Endgame’ Directors Joe And Anthony Russo Hate Spoilers As Much As The Fans

In an upcoming interview for Empire Magazine, Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo discuss the movie, which has been over 10 years in the making. While there have been few Endgame trailers that have been released, the most recent trailer ended up breaking records, as The Inquisitr previously reported. The film, which continues after the massive cliffhanger ending of Avengers: Infinity War, has shown very little footage, and the marketing apparently only has footage from the first 20 minutes of the film, as per a report from CBR.

While fans of Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) don’t need to be convinced to see Avengers: Endgame in theaters, marketing is a crucial aspect to build up excitement and anticipation for casual movie-going audiences. As such, trailers, featurettes, and marketing are but a foregone conclusion. However, with eagle-eyed fans dissecting every frame of a trailer, it’s difficult for films to not spoil themselves.

This is an aspect the Russo Brothers, directors of Avengers: Infinity War and other MCU films, like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, are keenly aware of. While trailers are usually produced by marketing teams, the Russos paid close attention to the marketing campaign for Endgame, and what has been released so far, as if they were going to make trailers for the film in the first place.

The Russos admittedly watch a lot of content themselves. When speaking to Empire Magazine, Joe Russo discussed just what influenced their decision when it came to the marketing for Avengers: Endgame.

“We talked about all scales of marketing. The thing that’s most important to us is that we preserve the surprise of the narrative. When I was a kid and saw The Empire Strikes Back at 11 am on the day it opened. It so profoundly moved me because I didn’t know a damn thing about the story I was going to watch. We’re trying to replicate that experience.”

In trying to recreate the spoiler-free experience, it’s safe to say that the Russos have succeeded with the marketing for Avengers: Endgame, given that the trailers are incredibly difficult to read or extrapolate many spoilers from, as The Hollywood Reporter said.

Marvel Studios, however, has been known to distort, edit, and manipulate trailers to intentionally hide characters, or change the context of visuals within the trailer, as discussed by ComicBook. Russo also addressed this in the interview with Empire Magazine.

“We consume too much content. So at our disposal are lots of different shots that aren’t in the movie that we can manipulate through CG to tell a story that we want to tell specifically for the purpose of the trailer and not for the film.”

It seems that the Russo Brothers are just as spoiler-wary as the fans are when it comes to spoiling their favorite films. The directors clearly share a sense of surprise and want to provide a similar experience that they enjoyed as fans, to fans of their own.

Avengers: Endgame releases on April 26.