Hulk smash spoilers, directors warn

| AGENCIES 18 Apr 2019

The directors of Avengers: Endgame have pleaded with fans not to spoil the movie by giving away storylines after reports that some scenes had leaked online.

In an open letter on Twitter - hashtag #DontSpoilTheEndgame - Joe and Anthony Russo said they and the vast cast of the Marvel superhero movie "have worked tirelessly for the last three years with the sole intention of delivering a surprising and emotionally powerful conclusion" to the saga.

"When you see Endgame in coming weeks, please don't spoil it for others, the same way you wouldn't want it spoiled for you," they added.

Walt Disney's Avengers: Endgame marks the conclusion of a story told across 22 Marvel films. The plot has been shrouded in secrecy, with no advance screenings for the entertainment press. Sales of advance tickets earlier this month surpassed those of the 2015 movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The film, which brings together multiple comic book characters, starts its rollout on Wednesday in Hong Kong, China and Australia before arriving in the United States next Thursday.

Some fans said they had seen brief, grainy scenes on Reddit, YouTube and other platforms, but the footage was swiftly removed.

Chris Smith, a contributor to the entertainment and tech news site, wrote that he had seen a leak but that it "doesn't really give away the ending" of the movie, although it contained scenes that had not been shown in any of the trailers or official clips released so far.

"I don't consider that the leak has actually ruined the movie for me. It just makes me want to watch it even more than I already did," wrote Smith.

Meanwhile, the Russo brothers made Mark Ruffalo shoot two endings and did not tell him which one was going to end up in the film.

"I didn't know until I saw the movie," Ruffalo told Yahoo Movies. "For one take, I did disappear, and then the other one I didn't."

He added: "I was pretty sure it was gonna be me. It's like Survivor. It's like, who's gonna get kicked off the island? And I probably should've. It's like Project Runway for leakers."

The revelation is just a tiny bit confusing - Infinity War and Endgame were shot back-to-back, and Ruffalo appears to have a major role in Endgame, so how did he not know he survived?


But, whatever, if they were still making decisions on which ending to go for, it would explain why - in a film with astonishing special effects - the shots of Ruffalo in the Hulkbuster armor looked a bit ropey.

But how did the rest of the Avengers feel about surviving the snap?

"I have survivor's guilt, mostly," Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, told Yahoo Movies.

"It's hard being the ones left behind," agreed Don Cheadle, who plays War Machine.

"I think like every actor you're just like, 'Great, I get more screen time'," Scarlett Johansson - Black Widow - joked.

If you're looking for more information on why certain supers died and while others survived in Infinity War - all of the original Avengers survived whereas many of the newer cast (Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther, Tom Holland's Spider-Man, the majority of the Guardians of the Galaxy) got dusted - the Russo brothers are not saying much. But they will leave you with a tease.

"The only thing we'll say in that regard," said Joe, "is that there's a reason that the original six Avengers survived."

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