Spoiler alert: they’re everywhere

In the era of social media, spoilers for film and television have skyrocketed, causing a frenzy among movie studios and film lovers everywhere. Social platforms for cinephiles like Letterboxd encourage conversation about media but often at the cost of being home to such spoilers. Photo illustration by SIMRAH AHMAD, Staff Photographer

In 2019 — after 11 years, 21 movies and over 48 hours of content — Marvel Studios reached its cinematic climax with “Avengers: Endgame,” serving as an end to the third phase of Marvel films and a farewell to many of the original Avengers characters. For even mild fans of the Marvel franchise, like sophomore public relations and advertising major Brenda Lai, the magnitude of this release could not be understated.

However, everywhere Lai turned, there were spoilers left and right being released not even a week after the film premiered. 

Through word of mouth, kids in her high school Spanish class were talking about the major plot points. She couldn’t even log into Minecraft without users on the server spoiling the deaths of two major characters. 

“I was like ‘Really? What party poopers,’” Lai said. “I mean, of course, it was ‘Avengers: Endgame’ so I was still excited to watch it. But part of me was disappointed because watching a movie for the first time and not knowing what is going on is the gift of going to the movies.”

In the age of instant gratification and live-reactions, social media has perpetuated film and television spoilers to an extreme level. With the snap of a photo, a quick tweet or a live video, information can spread to thousands of awaiting fans of the many massive franchises and multi-seasoned television shows.

According to actor Jonathan Tysor, a sophomore screenwriting major, a certain etiquette is expected of film lovers when it comes to facilitating open discourse after a debut: general information about a film’s plot should be kept off the internet for a week after release and major spoilers should be prohibited for the first month However, there is a certain responsibility that falls upon the individual to consciously evade spoilers in the digital era.

“We’re in the social media age," Tysor said. "I feel like people should be accustomed to just staying off Twitter for a week. You sometimes can’t avoid it on social media, but don’t go scrolling through Twitter under ‘#Marvel.’”

In 2014, a high-definition copy of the entire “The Expendables 3” movie was leaked to the internet. Similarly, in 2015, the sixth season of “Game of Thrones” suffered a spoiler at the hands of a drone flying over the set. 

In fear of spoilers, studios must go to great lengths to protect their intellectual property. 

For Marvel, actors such as Tom Holland were given fake script pages while other actors were only given pages with lines for their characters. In an interview on “The Tonight Show,” actress Michelle Pfeiffer said Marvel wouldn’t let her read the script before accepting her role as Janet Van Dyne in “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”

“(Marvel is) very mysterious, and they’re very secretive, of course, with their storylines,” Pfeiffer told the host Jimmy Fallon. “It’s a little hard because I met with Peyton (Reed), and I knew a little bit about the character, but there was no script. You have to commit without actually having read anything.”

Tysor told The Panther he’d be very hesitant taking on a role without the script.

“As an actor and a screenwriting major, the script is number one," Tysor said. "It’s super important to me. When you arrive on set, you’ve read the entire script, and it’s important to know all the details, especially with your relationships and context.” 

After completing filming for the movie “Killer Therapy,” Tysor was prepped before interviews to avoid giving away spoilers. Russell Schwartz, an entertainment marketing professor at Chapman, told The Panther that, more commonly, spoilers slip out through interviews with the cast members.

“When an actor inadvertently drops a line at an interview, that’s just not good media training,” Schwartz said. “They’re so desirous to be able to give you a piece of information and make them look like they’re on top of it all that something slips out. (The studios) just don’t want their material to get out.” 

Schwartz added that studiostaking major precautions to secure material — such as withholding script pages and prepping actors for interviews — is necessary to protect major franchises. 

“The security is so intense right now," Schwartz said. "They just don’t want the material to get out. If you’re a vendor working on one of these movies, you have to sign an enormous amount of (non-disclosure agreements). In many cases they would bring the editors to the Marvel offices and say ‘This is where you have to cut. We’re not letting it out.’”

Schwartz served as president of theatrical marketing at New Line Cinema when the “Lord of the Rings” franchise was released in 2001. In order to avoid spoilers, the studio took a minimalist approach to the market, only hiring one agency called AdFarm and never showing trailers or clips to test audiences.

“‘Lord of the Rings’ was three movies that were shot before the first one was even shown," Schwartz said. "It was an incredible risk and still hasn’t been done since then. We decided we were never going to show the movie to anybody, which was really scary. At that point, (director Peter Jackson) was so scared about word getting out about the movie. If it got a bad vibe on the internet, that could be the death of it.”

Back in 1978, David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, spoiled one of the most famous plot twists in movie history. He revealed to a local newspaper that Darth Vader was Luke’s father two years prior to the release of “The Empire Strikes Back.” However, the paper was so small that word never traveled. 

Now, with the internet, spoilers and leaked information are everywhere. 

“Social media makes people competitive,” Lai said. "We always compete for things like more followers or more likes, and it becomes a numbers game. It’s human nature for everyone to want to be first and the best. Even before social media, Youtubers would make videos about movie content and be like, ‘Oh my god, I’m first.'”

As a result, movie-goers everywhere purchase tickets months in advance to stay ahead of the competition. Although some users are conscious about spoilers and will preface posts with a spoiler alert, Lai said it’s not worth it to take the risk.

“If I’m really excited about a movie and have anticipated it for so long, I want to be the first one to see it,” Lai said. “Me and my friends will rush to see a movie to avoid spoilers, but it’s also really cool to be a part of those initial discussions and know the content before everyone else gets to see the film.”

With the upcoming releases of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World: Dominion,” make sure to plug your ears, secure your seats and mute keywords on Twitter to avoid the inevitable spoilers.