We blame JJ Abrams.
It seems like ever since the Abrams-produced TV show Lost became a hit, the pop culture world has been looking for the spoilers and the mystery box within their media. It pops up even if one doesn’t exist in a film, series or piece of literature. Just in Abrams-involved projects, you can see it in Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan, or Daisy Ridley’s Rey, both characters who had mystery boxes wrapped up around them that fans were whipped into a frenzy over. The biggest focus of that spoiler-obsessed frenzy for the last six months has been the third entry of Tom Holland’s web-slinging franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Two of ComicsXF’s Spider-fans, Adam Reck and Tony Thornley, sat down this week to chat about it, both for the film and in general.
Adam Reck: Well, Tony, we’re writing this on Tuesday, Nov. 16, the day the — presumably — final Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer drops. And the reason we wanted to get together to talk about this is because I have never in my life seen people so desperate to spoil a movie. So let’s start with our general stance on spoilers. Do you like spoilers? What’s too much? What’s just enough?
Tony Thornley: I’m one of those who’s all about the journey and not the destination … but there are some things I don’t want spoiled. If it’s something I’m lukewarm about, like the Black Widow movie or Eternals, I’ll read a plot synopsis on Wikipedia. But the big stuff I’m really hyped about? Not a chance. I went into Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Endgame and a few others like that with absolutely zero knowledge. So it’s all about my interest in it.
Adam: I used to be the annoying guy who shoved his fingers in his ears and loudly hummed if so much as a teaser came on ABC for Lost years ago. I’ve had to soften on this over the years because we’re just bombarded with spoiler culture constantly, but I am still amazed when I see movie trailers that basically spoil the entire movie. There’s a new Michael Bay flick coming out called Ambulance. I don’t need to see it. I saw the trailer before I saw Dune (a movie I proudly skipped all trailers for), and they showed the whole damn thing! I continue to be baffled anytime I see this approach, but particularly when it comes to superhero movies. Isn’t part of the fun seeing character reveals in real time? Not … before you see the movie?
Tony: Oh, definitely. I mean, in this case, we knew about some casting (Alfred Molina and Jamie Foxx) and not others before the first trailer. It was great hearing Willem Dafoe’s laugh out of the blue, and I’m now thrilled to see how he factors into the story. But I don’t need to know that until I’m sitting in the theater on Dec. 17!
Adam: We’re at a point where not only does the trailer spoil the movie, but there are mini-trailers at the start of trailers? I guess our attention spans are supposed to be that short that we can’t be expected to stay locked to YouTube for two minutes without an initial three-second blast of images and Hans Zimmer bass drops? Last night, the No Way Home Twitter account even dropped a reaction video of Spidey stars Zendaya, Holland and Jacob Batalon watching the new trailer and just going “Whoa!” over and over. The hype machine knows no end!
Tony: In the intro, I was being flippant, but that really is a JJ Abrams thing. I genuinely can’t remember that trend popping up prior to The Force Awakens, but remember how we got that pretrailer with the four shots — one each of Rey, Finn, Poe and BB-8? At least that had some actual John Williams music cues instead of the basso-thrum, but it’s all a bit much.
Adam: So obviously the end goal is to sell tickets, right? Make billions of dollars. And we must be in the minority because the No Way Home teaser was the most watched movie trailer of all time on YouTube (355.5 million views and counting). There must be a mindset that says if I know everything in the film, I am still thrilled to see it. I just don’t know how to get into that mindset. Can you?
Tony: Yeah, I struggle with it. I think Avengers: Endgame had just the right balance — here’s a bunch of cool shots of the movie. We know you’re going to see it, so this is just a hype reel. And it worked. I had no idea what to expect, so after the opening scene, when the screen went black and we see “Five … years … later,” it was a thrill. So to go from that to this is just disappointing.
Adam: Nothing we say is going to stop Sony, Disney and whatever other movie studio from advertising like this, but I am still concerned that fans not only want all of this, but that they demand it. Like, show it to us or else. A fan base this excited is great, up until you get Rise of Skywalker…
Tony: Yeah, I follow a bunch of these geeky accounts on TikTok (Yes, I know), and that’s the obsession right now. They are pouring over every shot of not just No Way Home’s trailer, but everything else. The 90 seconds of She-Hulk we got last week? The still images of Obi-Wan Kenobi? All that stuff is getting deconstructed like they’re on an episode of a mid-2000s crime procedural. (I only point those two out because they’re the most recent I’ve seen, but I’ve seen it with everything from Godzilla vs. Kong to Dune.)
To be fair, some of them are very funny, and mocking this culture (like the guy who said the invisible right hook the Lizard gets is clearly Drax — hilarious). The problem is that it’s still participating! I would love to go back to the days of the Independence Day trailer that just blasted a few landmarks into oblivion, showed a few cool shots and then moved on. That was enough to get butts in seats!
Adam: So what did you think of the trailer? I was getting heavy Spider-Man 3 vibes. Honestly, it looked like a mess. I’m trying to remain optimistic, but it does look like the lesson learned from Endgame’s success wasn’t “provide an emotionally satisfying capstone on a decade of movies” and instead “put lots of characters on the screen.” Which, looking back at past movies, might not be the best strategy.
Tony: I’m a big enough Spider-Man fan that I’ll go see it, regardless. Plus, I loved the cinematography of what we saw. There were some gorgeous shots just in the trailer. I really just wish they’d left some of these story moments as total surprises. It would have been incredible to walk into the theater opening weekend with absolutely no knowledge of Dafoe’s involvement and be blown away when that pumpkin bomb bounces onto the screen. So I just think the question is now that we know about this, is it going to be a Spider-Man 3 or an Into the Spider-Verse? And considering what we can glean from the plot, I hope it’s the latter — especially if that means we get Miles and Gwen, rather than Tobey and Andrew.
Admit it, that would be WAY cooler.
Hopefully, even if every dang minute of this movie gets leaked or previewed before it’s released, fans will have a great time at the movies. It’s more than likely these trends in advertising and the obsessions over picking apart every detail before a release are not going anywhere anytime soon. But that won’t stop us from grumbling at the endless teasers, leaks, trailers, posters and YouTube videos devoted to dissecting it all.
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
