Marvel’s techniques to avoid spoilers: from shooting drones to black market script deals

We’ve all known that for Marvel Studios, guarding their productions from story leaks is a top priority. For years they’ve been adamant of how they handle their resources all in the name of keeping details from their movies (and the general franchise of the MCU) away from prying eyes. But it might be that they’re getting a bit more intense lately, if the cast members of Secret Invasion are to be believed.

During a roundtable interview with Entertainment Weekly, actress Emilia Clark spoke about how she already knew of the security levels at Marvel due to her time on HBO’s “Game of Thrones”. “When we were doing ‘Game of Thrones,’ when it started to get to the later seasons, some massive security changes happened. I was chatting with [showrunners] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and they were like, “Marvel. We’re just learning from Marvel. Whatever Marvel’s doing, we just want to do that.” So that became, you don’t print anything - and then there was like me and Peter Dinklage being like, “I need it on paper! I can’t learn my lines without it being on paper!”

She also shared (jokingly, of course) that when she was first hired for her role on Marvel’s Secret Invasion, she had a Zoom meeting with the security team that “terrified” her. “I was like, ‘I think a man’s going to come and kill me if I say anything,”, revealing that she chose to remove the SIM card from her phone when she started filming, out of fear of being tracked down and causing spoilers.

MCU veteran Don Cheadle, who’s back in the role of James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine for the show, simply asked “They didn’t just hold up a picture of Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland and say, “Don’t be like these guys?”

No mercy against leaks and spoilers

One of the most direct and aggressive measures Marvel seems to be taking is against the problem of drones flying over sets and locations while filming. “They shot one down,” said Secret Invasion star Samuel L. Jackson, suggesting that security is now heavily equipped to get rid of unwanted flying visitors. “And they followed one back to where the dude was. They found him and, yeah, they got him.”

However, Jackson says that this isn’t the first time, or the only way, in which they deal with leaks.”There are worse examples than that! I remember when we got ready to do Avengers, someone printed out a copy of my Avengers script that had my watermark on it, and put it online for sale. I was shooting in Canada and Marvel came to Canada. It had been printed in the production office… They found out who it was, dude quit, left the country. They set up a fake buy for the script, dude didn’t show up. It was crazy.”

Secret Invasion’s first two episodes are now available on Disney+, with a new release every Wednesday.

Source | Entertainment Weekly