Never Trust A Trailer / Marvel Cinematic Universe

• The Incredible Hulk.
  • A trailer shows Dr Samson interviewing Banner in Betty Ross' house. This scene appears in neither the movie nor even in extra material from the DVD. This just causes a lot of confusion when we see that Samson is the one that turned Banner in when, given what we see in the movie, he never even should have known Banner was there. The second disc of the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD features the deleted scenes with Samson.
  • Another trailer starts with Robert Downey Jr.'s cameo as Tony Stark, which gives the impression that the movie is a crossover with Iron Man and that Stark will have a significant role in the movie. In reality, Stark shows up for less than a minute at the very end of the movie and only interacts with General Ross.
• The first trailer for Iron Man 2 showed a long opening of Tony and Pepper talking aboard his private jet, where he asks her for a "kiss for good luck" and she kisses his helmet instead before throwing it out of the plane, leading him to go after it while telling her that "you complete me". The finished product begins with Tony just jumping out of the plane, no romantic subtext involved. The alternate opening with that scene appears on the DVD... with unfinished effects, showing they quickly dismissed that scene.
• Thor:
  • The trailers make it look like Thor gets banished in the first ten minutes of the movie and the rest of the plot takes place on Earth. In actuality, about half the plot takes place on Asgard.
  • Also, Loki was featured in only one or two shots in all of the trailers, and when he does appear, he seems a bit like the tag-along younger brother, which he is, until his Start of Darkness. This may have helped create the strong audience reaction to Loki — non-comics fans probably didn't expect him to have a major part, and comics fans probably didn't expect him to be portrayed as sympathetically as he was.
  • It also used what was apparently a re-shot scene, with Jane Foster kneeling over him and pleading "Please, open your eyes!" To which Thor responded "Oh, god, this is Earth, isn't it?" Fans of the comic exploded at this distressingly modern, un-Thor-like phrase, which made them certain that the film would present a bastardized version of the character. In the actual film, Jane says the more realistic "Do me a favor and don't be dead" after hitting him with her van, and Thor immediately leaps to his feet, demanding his father open the Bifrost and looking for Mjolnir, far more fitting to the character.
• The Avengers (2012):
  • One of the trailers features Tony Stark listing off his fellow Avengers, including himself. In the actual movie, Tony never lists himself in the headcount, and even lists off the deceased Phil Coulson instead.
  • In one trailer, they played the scene with Captain America asking Tony Stark "Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what are you?" While Tony's wording is the same ("Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist"), he says it flippantly and light-heartedly, like he's joking, and the next shot is Thor laughing. In the movie, he says the line like a Badass Boast in a "what are you gonna do about it, Capsicle?" tone. Thor's laugh doesn't come until a few lines later, and he's not laughing at anything funny, but with disdain, following up with the line "You people are so petty and tiny."
  • Also the trailers made the movie look pretty dark — opening with Loki demanding to know why Fury depends on such "lost creatures" and emphasizing the conflict between the heroes. While these elements are in the film, the movie was buckets of fun and had a pretty light tone, the heroes come together when they need to without much fuss, and its reconstruction of many superhero tropes was one of its biggest strengths.
• Iron Man 3:
  • The trailers and TV spots went out of their way to portray Ben Kingsley's Mandarin as the diabolical mastermind and the personal nemesis of Tony Stark, focused on turning his life to hell - in other words, much like his comic book self. However, Kingsley is the wacky stage actor junkie, playing the part of "The Mandarin" to the public for pure Narm. The actual Mandarin and the Big Bad is Aldrich Killian, who is a Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer. Also, half of Kingsley's Badass Boast lines don't appear at all and the other half are directed to the President/general public, not Tony.
  • Also, one of the most remarkable lines of the second trailer, "There's my boys" said by Tony Stark when his armors come to his help, which was even referenced in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, is cut from the movie.
  • The first trailer also made the film seem Darker and Edgier, complete some harrowing scenes set to very moody string music. In reality, the film is a borderline action-comedy at parts, and is probably the most humorous movie Marvel made before Guardians of the Galaxy.
• The trailers for Thor: The Dark World did it again, featuring multiple scenes that were cut entirely, as well as making it look like the journey to/through the Dark World with Thor and Loki would be the major plot point of the movie, when really it is almost glossed over in the final movie.
• The trailers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier sees Nick Fury get attacked and seemingly killed by the Winter Soldier. Although he is ambushed, Fury manages to escape the initial attack. The moment where the Winter Soldier seems to fatally wound him comes a little while later, shortly after he manages to rendezvous with Steve.
• The trailers for Guardians of the Galaxy present the group as having already been formed at the start of the film, when in fact it's all about how they meet and eventually decide to form a team. Also, Drax doesn't show up until after they're thrown in prison, unlike the trailer sequence that introduces them all.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron:
  • Like Spider-Man 3, it was marketed as Darker and Edgier. While the movie is definitely darker than the first one, it's by no means dark, and still has plenty of room for lighthearted fun.
  • The mysterious cloaked woman who appears inside a cave in a trailer is not included in the theatrical cut of the film.
  • Some trailers show Wanda flinging a bolt of red energy, and then a red beam slamming Tony into a wall. The red beam attacking Tony actually comes from Ultron instead.
  • The first trailer ends with Ultron ominously saying "There are no strings on me" after the Avengers have seemingly been defeated, complete with a shot of Captain America's destroyed shield. The clip of the dead Avengers and Cap's broken shield is actually taken from an illusion Wanda casts to mess with Tony's head, and has nothing to do with battling Ultron (who doesn't yet exist at that point in the movie).
  • Ultron's line "I'm going to show you something beautiful: the whole world screaming for mercy," is never spoken in the actual film. Instead, the line seems to be bits thrown together from his Motive Rant to a captured Black Widow in the film.
  • A couple of TV spots will have Steve saying "She's with us," either in reference to Black Widow or the Scarlet Witch. It also doesn't make it to the film.
  • The second trailer digitally omitted Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and The Vision from the final battle, presumably to avoid spoiling that the former two eventually betray Ultron and side with the heroes, and that the latter is actually in the movie at all.
• The trailers for Ant-Man featured a whole bunch of jabs at the titular hero's codename, with Scott himself clearly thinking very little of it. This running gag is noticeably absent from the final movie, where Scott is actually quite fond of the name since having a corny moniker makes him closer to the hero his daughter sees him as rather than a glorified burglar.
• Captain America: Civil War:
  • The TV spots and first trailer climax with a shot of both teams of heroes rushing towards each other for an epic showdown. The American ads carefully edited the footage to avoid showing Spider-Man, who nonetheless can be seen during the Japanese TV spots showing the same scene.
  • One of the trailers also has a scene where Bucky apparently blasts War Machine out of the sky, nearly killing him. It's actually stitched together from two separate scenes that happen at different points in the movie. In the actual film, it's The Vision who shoots down War Machine, and it's completely by accident. The shot of Bucky raising his rifle to fire is from much later in the movie, when he and Cap infiltrate an abandoned HYDRA base.
  • Several trailers feature Tony Stark saying to Steve "Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth," making it look like he's antagonizing Steve and trying to butt heads with him. Tony says it in a different context in the film, and it's not the full line either. In the actual context he's admitting that Steve can get on his nerves, but he's still worried that the Super Registration Act could end up making him a criminal.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:
  • An early San Diego Comic-Con trailer (not screened for wide audience) featured a shot of Sylvester Stallone in a Nova Corps uniform, fueling online speculation about a "cameo as a Nova Corps" member. He turns out to be playing Starhawk and never wears a Nova Corps uniform in the movie.
  • In the full trailer, Ayesha's comments about sensing great fear, jealousy, and betrayal within the Guardians, and that the Sovereign need to "cleanse the universe of this weakness", implying that the Sovereign are Omnicidal Maniacs who intend to wipe out all lifeforms that don't fit their mould. In reality, not only are the Sovereign not treated anywhere near as ominously as they are in the trailer, they are also mostly Plot Irrelevant Villains as they are only after the Guardians because they stole some batteries from them and Ego is the true threat of the film.
• Spider-Man: Homecoming: The movie was missing the shot of Spider-Man swinging through New York City with Iron Man flying beside him that we see at the end of the third trailer before it cuts to the title card.
• Thor: Ragnarok
  • The trailers show the pivotal scene where Hela destroys Mjolnir taking place in New York City. Thanks to reshoots, the fight actually takes place in a field in Norway in the finished movie.
  • The first trailer opens with a captive Thor giving the audience a How We Got Here voiceover that segues into the scene where Hela destroys his hammer, seemingly implying that she imprisoned Thor after defeating him. The trailer's opening was actually taken from the movie's Action Prologue, where Thor is held captive by a completely unrelated villain. All the stuff with Hela only happens later.
• Avengers: Infinity War:
  • An early trailer shown at the Disney D23 Expo and San Diego Comic-Con depicted Thor with both eyes intact in order to avoid spoiling the fact that Hela tears out his right eye during the climax of Thor: Ragnarok. The Comic-Con poster did something similar, with the artist intentionally posing Thor in such a way so that the right half of his face wasn't clearly visible. This was ultimately subverted, however, since Thor is given a new robotic eye by Rocket Raccoon partway through the film. The main trailers (released after Thor Ragnarok) go the other way and show Thor wearing an eyepatch even in scenes after he gets his new eye.
  • Played straight with The Hulk being shown running into battle with the group in Wakanda — in the film, Banner is present for the battle, however he is not transformed into the Hulk, and is wearing the Hulkbuster armor instead. The crew openly stated that this shot was specifically created for the trailer as a misdirect for how Hulk spends the whole movie refusing to come out.
  • The third trailer opens with Gamora seemingly telling Iron Man about Thanos and what he plans to do with the Infinity Stones. The two heroes never actually meet in the movie; Gamora's lines are taken from a scene where she tells the other Guardians about Thanos, while the shot of Tony comes from a scene where Doctor Strange explains the origin of the Infinity Stones. This helps hide the fact that Gamora dies long before she can meet Iron Man.
  • Thanos is consistently shown in the trailers to only have two Infinity Stones in his gauntlet, even when showing scenes from the movie where he actually has more. This is to avoid spoiling the order in which events happen, since Thanos gains his second Infinity Stone at the end of the Action Prologue and collects more over the course of the film.
  • The second trailer ends with Spider-Man swinging through debris in the battle on Titan. This shot deliberately hides his Iron Spider suit's legs, which are not concealed through most of the film.
  • The final shot in the first trailer of the heroes running towards the camera never actually happens in the movie and was likely designed solely for trailer hype-building purposes.
  • Thanos declaring that he will have fun slaughtering his enemies while collecting the Infinity Stones doesn't happen, and in fact Thanos tries to negotiate with the heroes to let them achieve his goals and later non-fatally subdued the Avengers in Wakanda. His smile at the end is quite sad and bittersweet.
• Several trailers for Captain Marvel (2019) feature her saying "I'm not going to fight your war. I'm going to end it!" as a Badass Boast. She doesn't say this line in the film, in fact the line isn't in the film at all in that form: it's a paraphrase of something her mentor, Mar-Vell, said. And it doesn't refer to a hero, or even a weapon, but to a light-speed engine designed to get the Skrulls away from the Kree.
• Avengers: Endgame:
  • In the final movie, Professor Hulk (a fusion of Bruce Banner's personality and mind with the body of the Hulk) is present as the team walks across the Avengers' hangar before their mission. In the trailers, the character is not present at all in the lineup as the team walks.
  • Several shots of Captain Marvel seen in trailers and TV spots (some of which show her floating in the air looking down at something while sporting her helmet) were also deliberately changed to hide the reveal that she sports a new costume and a shorter haircut to signify the film's shocking five year Time Skip, which was also spoiled by the leaked footage.
  • Many of the clips shown of Thor from the marketing are taken from the early parts of the film, thereby hiding the twist that Thor becomes slovenly and disheveled, growing out his hair to boot, after the Time Skip.
  • In general, the trailers heavily played up the rematch between the Avengers and Thanos, making it look like the movie was all a high-stakes battle for the fate of the universe. They deliberately obfuscated the fact that the second act is a light-hearted time travel adventure to retrieve the Infinity Stones, with a heavy dose of comedic Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness moments.
  • An early scene in the film involving the Avengers looking at the sky, had fans correctly guess that someone was deleted out of the shot. While fans incorrectly guessed Captain Marvel, it was actually Pepper who was omitted. Pepper's absence was likely to keep her fate a secret, after the ending of Infinity War.
• Spider-Man: Far From Home
  • The trailer depicts Spidey busting a Bad Guy Bar and declaring the NYPD that he's off holidaying. It doesn't show up in the film proper. The footage was repurposed as a DVD short, where Peter prepares for his trip.
  • It also depicts Mysterio from an Alternate Universe as a hero, who teams up with Spider-Man in order to stop the Elementals from destroying Earth, as they did to Mysterio's home planet, alongside a massive Elemental being the final villain. The film proper reveals Mysterio has been Evil All Along, and the said Elementals are actually illusions generated from his technology.
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: The promotional material indicates that Helmut Zemo has gone from hating the Avengers to hating superheroes as a whole, to the point of saying that they "cannot be allowed to exist". In the series proper, Zemo merely remarks that he thinks super soldiers shouldn't be allowed to exist, due to their political and corruptible nature, and is quite content to return to prison after taking down the Flag-Smashers and paying tribute to the Sokovia memorial.
• Loki:
  • Trailers made it look like the series would be about Loki fixing the timeline after he stole the Tesseract in 2012 during Endgame. That anomaly is fixed within two minutes of the show's opening, and the actual threat is something completely different. It also made it seem as though Loki would have to go back in time and reenact unsolved real-life mysteries, such as the D.B. Cooper hijacking. That scene is actually a flashback to one of Loki's pranks in the past and is inconsequential to the plot.
  • President Loki was heavily played up in marketing, and was even made to seem like he was the main Loki in another outfit. The character is one of several Loki variants and is just a Plot-Irrelevant Villain.
• Promotions for Eternals made Druig out to be a villain by describing him as someone who may not be trustworthy. Prominent scenes in the trailers show him apparently overlooking the destruction of an Aztec city and standing before a group of humans he has under mind control. In the film proper, Druig halts the massacre at Tenochtitlan before marching everyone away, and in the present, his villagers are under mind control so they can shoot at a Deviant in unison. He's still as sour and condescending as the promos suggest, but he does care about humanity and the other Eternals and joins Sersi's side in stopping Tiamut from destroying Earth. In reality, Ikaris is the one who betrays the Eternals by killing off Ajax.
• In a two-for-one situation, the trailers for both Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Spider-Man: No Way Home gave alot of people the impression that their plots would be heavily intertwined. Apart from the reveal that Wong is now the Sorceror Supreme in the latter film, thus explaining why he, rather than Strange, dealt with Shang-Chi in the former, they are easily independent of one another.
• Speaking of Spider-Man: No Way Home, one trailer edited out both of the previous Spider-Men, but the footage in question showed an invisible force attacking Lizard, making it obvious someone had been edited out. Hilariously, this led to another bit of Never Trust a Trailer as someone kicking the Lizard mid-air implies Andrew Garfield's involvement. While he is in the movie, in the movie proper, it is Tobey Maguire who actually kicks the Lizard in the face.
  • The trailer makes it seem like Strange goes behind Wong's back and casts the spell against his wishes. In the movie, while Wong does not want Strange to cast the spell he eventually relents and just tells Strange to leave him out of it. Although in the second stinger, which is a teaser for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the audio of Wong telling Strange not to cast the spell can be heard, implying that that part of the trailer took place in an alternate universe.
  • The film also implied Sandman and Lizard died in their respective universes, and were pulled into the MCU only due to their impending deaths after which Peter and Strange had a conflict due to Peter not wanting to let them die. Then it's revealed this wasn't the case, the spell only pulled them with the condition that they know Peter Parker is Spider-Man, nothing else, so they weren't in any danger had they been simply returned to their universes.
  • The trailer heavily implied that Strange is going to be Peter's new mentor after Tony Stark's passing. Strange is instead Put on a Bus in his own Mirror Dimension for a good chunk of the movie, while the mentor role is actually filled by Aunt May until her death by the Green Goblin before being passed on to the two Alternate Self Peters that also ended up in the MCU. Strange is also more annoyed at Spidey than the trailer let on, mainly when he realizes that Peter hadn't thought to call MIT before coming to him.
  • Several regarding Doctor Octopus:
    • Promotional material emphasizes Doctor Octopus the most out of all the villains, implying that he's the Big Bad, when the main threat is actually the Green Goblin, whose presence in the advertising was comparatively minimal. This may have been a deliberate misdirect, as Alfred Molina had already leaked that he was going to appear in the movie. But, Willem Dafoe's involvement was still a secret. His return wasn't confirmed until shortly after the premiere of the first trailer.
    • The initial trailer featuring him frames the scene as Doc Ock arriving, saying the now famous, "Hello, Peter," and then Peter activates the Iron Spider suit to face him; in turn, this insinuates that Alfred Molina reprising the role is more just an allusion rather than being the same incarnation of Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2 (like J. K. Simmons who plays a version of J. Jonah Jameson here, instead of playing the same one from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy). In the film itself, Peter senses Doc Ock approaching well in advance and suits up then, fully-covered when Doc Ock gets there and leading to his later surprise when he realizes that this isn't his Spider-Man.
    • You would think from the trailers and posters that Doc Ock's tentacles now having Tony's nanotech will make him much stronger. The minute Octavius absorbs them, the battle is decided in Peter's favor, as now the Iron Spider suit has full control over the doctor's artificial limbs.
  • Twofold in regards to the villains' fates in their own worlds.
    • The trailers imply that Doc Ock knew of his death, telling Peter he's essentially fighting ghosts. In the film proper, he says Peter is going to fight a ghost. He is referring to Osborn, who Doc Ock knows is supposed to be dead. He isn't aware of his own death until later, as described below.
    • The trailers also have Doctor Strange being the one to tell Peter that the villains will die. In the film, the villains talk amongst themselves while imprisoned and figure it out on their own, with Peter bearing witness. Strange isn't aware until Peter tells him, though he still says it's their fate when he does learn of it.
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:
  • The trailers implied that the plot would center on the fallout from Strange's actions in Spider-Man: No Way Home, framing his tampering with the multiverse as a catalyst which brings in an alternate Doctor Strange to serve as the film's primary threat. In the film itself, while the events of No Way Home are brought up and Strange does face an alternate self, the plot is actually driven by Wanda trying to make use of America Chavez's innate multiverse-traveling powers to find a universe where she could actually live the fake life she created in WandaVision, no matter how many people she has to kill in the process.
  • All of the promotion hinted at Strange teaming up with Wanda to take down a multiversal threat, while she begins Slowly Slipping Into Evil as they explore various realities. While Strange does indeed go to Wanda for help early on, he quickly figures out that she's the one who's been sending demons after America Chavez, and she serves as the antagonist for the entire rest of the film.
    • Similarly, the trailers implied that an alternate Wanda will be one of the villains in the movie, while sadly noting the despair her Sacred Timeline counterpart is in. Sacred Timeline Wanda is revealed to be the real villain of the movie, whereas the alternate Wanda is her Good Counterpart, but she still sympathised with her Sacred Timeline self.
  • Trailers put a heavy emphasis on The Illuminati members, implying they might be a multiversal council putting Strange on trial for what he's done to the multiverse. Truthfully, they're just a regular superteam from a universe that Strange travelled to, and they get brutally slaughtered by Scarlet Witch to boot.
• Werewolf by Night (2022):
  • Trailers made it look as though the hunters were gathered to hunt one of their own who was secretly a monster. They're actually gathered to hunt Man-Thing, and no one except Jack knows that he's a werewolf. They only turn to hunt him after he touches the Bloodstone and reveals his true nature.
  • There's a shot in the trailer where Man-Thing grabs Jack from behind a hedge, which is framed as a Jump Scare. In the actual film, Jack is actually there to save Man-Thing (or Ted rather), as the two have an Odd Friendship. Jack is overjoyed to see that his friend is still alive.
• The Marvels (2023):
  • The trailer implies that Dar-Benn, for whatever reason, intentionally entangles the powers of Carol, Monica, and Kamala. In the film itself, their powers become entangled as an unintended consequence of Dar-Benn using the other bangle to open wormholes and both Carol and Monica touching glowing mysterious walls because they're there.
  • The final trailer suggests that the main threat that the heroes have to fix is a rift to another dimension that Dar-Benn opened. Dar-Benn's actual plan is using wormholes to steal natural resources from planets, and the rift is only opened by accident at the very end of the movie.

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