Movies that were totally spoiled before they'd been released

With the Russo brothers taking to social media to ask everyone not to spoil Infinity War’s major reveals after the movie hits cinemas, it’s made us think about all the times other films weren’t quite as careful with their secrets.

We’ve already showed you movie posters that spoiled the movie, but some films get ruined in advance in much weirder ways.

Here’s some of our favourite ways people have found out key plot points before they had a chance to buy a movie ticket.

Justice League – Social media

Poor, poor Justice League – it wasn’t just the plot that was a complete mess, the marketing was pretty confused too.

You had Henry Cavill on Instagram teasing Superman’s black suit and hashtagging every other post #JusticeLeague in one corner of the Internet, then in another, you had Warner Brothers leaving Superman out of every trailer and teaser poster because his involvement was supposed to be a massive surprise.

Literally no-one was fooled, especially when we found out that Henry Cavill had been called back for moustachetastic reshoots.

Seriously, Superman’s return was possibly the worst kept secret in movie history – you didn’t have to be Batman to uncover this particular spoiler.

Star Wars – Novelisation

A long time ago, in a galaxy that didn’t have the internet, George Lucas allowed the novelisation of the first Star Wars movie to come out a full SIX MONTHS before the film hit theatres. Yep, fans could read the entire film half a year before they could see it.

For all those who say that spoiler culture is ruining movies, that decision didn’t exactly mess with Star Wars’ box office, did it?

Though, there’s a chance that’s because no-one cared enough to actually read the damn thing at that point. We mean, imagine the book-shop browse: ‘Wookiees? Skywalkers? Jedis? What is this nonsense?!’

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 – Soundtrack

As with the first film, the Guardians Of The Galaxy soundtrack was released before the movie came out (the soundtrack landed in stores on April 21, the movie was released on April 28 in the UK, and May 5 in the US). But there’s nothing to worry about here, it’s just a bunch of classic ‘70s jams, right? Wrong.

Not only did Awesome Mix Vol 2 contain an original song – David Hasselhoff’s Guardians Inferno – that song contained a massive spoiler, in the form of the lyric ‘I didn’t learn parenting, my daddy was a planet.’ Considering that’s a third-act reveal, any fans listening closely would have had a pretty major moment ruined via their Walkmans.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – Score

Still, at least the Guardians reveal required a little bit of digging to stumble across it – one innocent glance at the tracklisting for The Phantom Menace’s (stunning) score would have revealed arguably the biggest spoiler of the movie.

No, it wasn’t a track titled ‘This movie will be incredibly disappointing, lower your expectations immediately’ but a sad instrumental named ‘The Funeral of Qui-gon’ – seriously.

If you walked into the high street and listened carefully in 1999, you could hear a million CD buyers cry out in frustration at once.

Dick Tracy – Toy

Okay, this one’s bizarre. Dick Tracy goes out of its way to establish a world in which pretty much everyone has a really weird face. That’s so that it can set-up a villain called ‘The Blank’ who has a blank face.

In a world where a character called Prune Face has a face that looks like – you guessed it – a prune, you just buy into the fact this dude was born with no features and move on.

Then, you’re shocked when – in A MASSIVE REVEAL – The Blank turns out to be Madonna wearing a mask at the end of the film. That’s if you didn’t go into a toy store shortly before the movie came out, and saw that the Blank Face toy was basically Madonna with a removable mask.

The Avengers – Trailer

The Russo brothers can honourably ask everyone to keep the secrets all they want, but we really hope someone’s told the Disney marketing team, because they’ve got form on this sort of thing.

Not only did they blow The Avengers’ team-gathering money-shot in pretty much every trailer, they showed Hulk catching Tony Stark as he fell from the sky, which is basically the last thing that happens in the movie if you don’t count the bit where everyone eats a kebab.

Add in sticking Sebastian Stan’s name in the opening credits of The Winter Soldier (let’s be fair, that title is also a bit of a reveal) despite the fact Bucky died at the end of The First Avenger, and we’ll be really surprised if we don’t find out Infinity War 2 is called ‘Wow, we can’t believe Thanos killed Tony Stark in the last one; wait until you see how we kill Captain America in this one!’ a week before Infinity War comes out.

Watchmen – Casting

In the Watchmen comics, it’s a big reveal when we find out the identity of Rorschach – he’s either in costume, or is obscured, for the majority of the comic. When we find out he’s actually the red-haired man who’s appeared throughout the graphic novel holding an ‘the end is nigh’ sign, it’s a comic-dropping moment.

This works in the comics, but not in the movie – because, as soon as Jackie Earle Haley was announced ahead of Watchmen’s release, one of the coolest elements of the comic was completely ruined.

They needed to keep the casting secret, and recruit a complete unknown to make the moment work, and nobody has time for that. Especially as, you know, the Watchmen graphic novel is already pretty big spoiler for the film, and that had been out for a while.

Thor: Ragnarok – Mark Ruffalo’s cell phone

There’s a grand tradition of actors accidentally spoiling movies in interviews (shout out to David Prowse’s bonkers reveal that Vader is Luke’s dad, ages before Empire Strikes Back was released), but Mark Ruffalo gave the tradition a technological upgrade last year, when he accidentally live-streamed the first 10 minutes of Thor: Ragnarok on Instagram.

We really hope the Russos confiscate his phone before they let him into the Infinity War premiere.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Troll

While we don’t normally like to reward trolls, you’ve got to grudgingly respect the dedication it took for this dude (and we’re assuming it’s a dude) to ruin everyone’s day before they had a chance to see The Force Awakens.

That’s some spoiler culture dedication, right there. China didn’t get the The Force Awakens until January, so we hope no-one from that country flew to the States to see it early and got stuck in a traffic jam behind this guy on their way to see the film.

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