Avengers: Infinity War Directors Gave Cast Fake Scripts With Phony Twists To Avoid Spoilers
The directors of Avengers: Infinity War have taken the popular "no spoilers allowed" mantra to a whole new level.
In our tech-obsessed world where television fans live-tweet series' finales and moviegoers spill their thoughts about a new release on social media before the film even opens in theaters, spoilers seem completely unavoidable. They're definitely no laughing matter in Hollywood, especially amongst the blockbusters of huge fandom-backed franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is set to launch Avengers: Infinity War on April 27. Fans have long known that the minds behind the film are doing everything in their power to hold the super-sized superhero movie under a tight lock and key, including starting an anti-spoiler #ThanosDemandsYourSilence initiative on social media, but what they haven't realized is just how far directors Joe and Anthony Russo have pushed their precautions.
Speaking with GamesRadar, the Russo Brothers revealed that they gave Avengers: Infinity War cast members fake scripts filled with bogus scenes and phony twists in attempts to throw off the actors' understanding of the film and to keep things extra secretive.
"It's important that all that time and energy that people spent investing in the Marvel Universe over the last decade, all the passion, all the emotion they put into these characters, all the conversations they've had online... we don't want the ending spoiled. This is the ending of that story," Joe Russo explained, adding that only a handful of extremely lucky people have seen the actual theatrical version of Avengers: Infinity War. "We put a lot of effort into making sure nobody knows the true story of the film. All the actors were given fake scripts. Very few people know the truth of what happens in the film."
Avengers: Infinity War stars Paul Bettany, who plays Vision, and Elizabeth Olsen, the actress behind Scarlet Witch, spoke to the fact that cast members read sham scripts and rehearsed fake scenes.
"We had to read scripts that had fake scenes in it, fake twists in it, fake storylines," Bettany stated. Olsen added that there were "fake endings and fake lines" in the dummy scripts to ensure that no one could let slip the real plot of Avengers: Infinity War.
What's more is that the actors weren't told that the scripts were fake until they walked on set. As Bettany explained, "You get on set and they say 'All of that stuff you read? That's not what happens!' and then they give us the real deal and we kind of deal with it there and then, and it became kind of exciting."
Olsen felt those same feelings of excitement over the secrecy, revealing that she's interested in seeing the final product since she "never read a full script" and only heard about the other storylines that don't involve her character. But even that chatter could have been totally false; Bettany and Olsen quipped that it's likely the Russos lied in that regard as well.
While it may seem silly that filmmakers would go this far to slash the possibility of spoilers getting out, the directors had a solid reason for doing so. "We can't trust anybody — at least of all Tom Holland! — with the truth," said Joe Russo, poking fun at the Spider-Man: Homecoming actor's past mistake of "accidentally" leaking a poster for Avengers: Infinity War. "It's a burden to bear for them. It's probably easier to have read a fake script and a fake ending because they don't have the pressure of knowing what happens in the movie and then they have to hide it."
So there you have it, Marvel fans. It's best to not believe anything you hear, see, or read about Avengers: Infinity War until the film arrives in theaters on April 27.