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Leaked 'Avengers: Infinity War' Footage From SDCC 2017 Raises Difficult Questions For Fans

By the time Marvel was ready to show off footage from Avengers: Infinity War, fans were already excited beyond belief.

By Tom BaconPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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A thrilling film; but we need to be careful. [Credit: Marvel Studios]

San Diego Comic-Con 2017 has been a thrilling weekend for Marvel fans, culminating in the Marvel Studios Hall H panel on Saturday night. The House of Ideas revealed key casting for Ant-Man and the Wasp, debuted a stunning new trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, showed exclusive footage from Black Panther, and delighted fans with news about 2019's Captain Marvel. By the time Marvel was ready to show off footage from Avengers: Infinity War, fans were already excited beyond belief.

There's a sense in which that Infinity War footage was nothing new; Marvel had already debuted it at the D23 Expo in Anaheim just a week before #SDCC2017. Still, it gave fans at San Diego the chance to see the teaser for themselves, and by all accounts, it was absolutely stunning.

But there's a catch. In the wake of the #Marvel Studios panel, leaked phone recordings of the footage have gone viral. Although Marvel had asked guests not to film, some fans were clearly unable to resist the temptation, and evidently, Marvel's security missed some mobiles.

This Isn't Just A Harmless Issue

Cast your eyes back to 2015, and SDCC faced a real issue with leaked footage. Nearly all the footage from Hall H ended up online in some form or another, and Warner Bros. was even forced to reveal the Suicide Squad trailer while the film was still early in production, so that fans' first experience of the film wasn't shoddy leaked footage. A similar fate also befell Fox's Deadpool SDCC footage from the same year, which was online before the weekend was over.

The result? Last year, Fox actually pulled out from SDCC altogether. This year, their panel left X-Men fans shocked; it focused purely on the upcoming Kingsman film, and completely omitted the flourishing X-Men franchise. Fans who were hoping for teasers of Deadpool 2, New Mutants, or X-Men: Dark Phoenix were doomed to disappointment. Indeed, only three major studios had panels in San Diego this year.

It's easy to see why so many studios decided to opt out this year. From a marketing perspective, leaks from San Diego are a nightmare. Back in 2015, Fox producer Hutch Parker gave us all a sense of why the leaks are such a problem:

"I’d say it really isn’t intended to be leaked. It’s really intended to excite a core. From a marketing perspective, what they want is to share it with the most discerning eyes that are out there for this material. It’s the biggest and probably most intense focus group any of us ever have."

As much as it may pain us to be excluded, the truth of the matter is that this SDCC footage is unfinished, and simply not ready for the general public. The studios want to watch how this SDCC's "core" group of fans react to the footage, in order to evaluate its success and identify ways they can improve it. As Parker explained back in 2015:

"[Showing footage] is something people do with trepidation, but with hope. We make a movie and you want to believe it’s going to be great. The reality is, not all of them are. But you have to believe that going in. We go in wanting to be accepted and embraced, and ideally even acknowledged for having done it well."

To put it simply, leaked footage loses its impact. What studio honestly wants footage to be circulating ten months before a movie's release? That's particularly the case for Marvel, who have two more films due out before Infinity War, and really want our attention to be focused on those right now. With three Marvel movies releasing each year, there's already a risk that trailers won't have the impact the studio wants. Marvel's marketing team carefully schedule trailer and footage drops across the year in order to ensure each film gets as much hype as possible; that's why we realistically shouldn't be expecting an Infinity War trailer to come out until the release of Thor: Ragnarok later this year.

All this means leaks aren't just something to be accepted; they're a problem. On the one hand, they may mean studios face a public reaction to unfinished content, with special effects that aren't ready for high-quality digital distribution, and unfinished CGI. Distributed online, and viewed in high quality on digital devices, the weaknesses of this unfinished footage would become glaringly obvious in a way they weren't at Hall H. Reactions would spin out of control. That's why Joe Russo explained the Infinity War footage would only be released when it was "exactly right." He added:

"We are taking our time and working on that footage because, as you can imagine, the levels of visual effects in these movies are unprecedented and there are certain things in this footage at Comic-Con that works specifically for a Comic-Con audience. But when we go wide, to a wide audience, we have to make sure that footage works for a wide audience."

Meanwhile, the studios face these leaks with real nervousness. After all, they completely disrupt those carefully constructed marketing schedules. Right now, the risk Marvel faces isn't that Infinity War will under-perform; it's that hype for Infinity War could well drown out everything else they're trying to do. The new Thor: Ragnarok trailer was immediately picked apart by fans on social media who were looking for evidence of the Soul Stone, eager to see how the film will continue the buildup to Infinity War. The next two Marvel movies exist in the shadow of Infinity War, and Marvel's marketing department is carefully managing the hype to ensure that Infinity War doesn't overshadow them completely.

So here's the thing we fans have to decide: do we want next year's San Diego Comic-Con to be the tremendous success this year's was? Do we want to see more studios following Marvel, revealing exclusive footage and giving fans a glimpse of what's in the works? Do we want more studios to return to San Diego? There's only way we're going to get that.

By not watching or sharing the leaks.

[Source: CinemaBlend, ComicBook.com]

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About the Creator

Tom Bacon

A prolific writer and film fan, Tom has a deep love of the superhero genre.

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