Marvel Has A Secret Police To Stop Studio Leaks
Here's what we know about the Marvel secret police so far.
This article is more than 2 years old
If someone is spoiled for a Quentin Tarantino movie, it tells them what’s going to happen in that one movie. But if someone is spoiled on the wrong thing in a single Marvel movie, it can spoil the next five films. Over the years of developing their cinematic universe, stars like Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland have proven how hard it is to avoid any and all spoilers while giving interviews. Meanwhile, audiences are always hungry for more details from behind the sets. Marvel Studios have a reputation for keeping their secrets locked down tight. But is there really a Marvel secret police responsible for this kind of thing?
Everything being reported by celebrities involved makes it sound like there is definitely a Marvel secret police keeping information on lockdown. Kevin Smith, the filmmaker behind movies like Clerks, recently discussed the secret police on his podcast, FatMan Beyond. According to his sources, the Marvel secret police will leave false information on sets, give false information during auditions and on call sheets, all as a way of dealing in subterfuge. They want to find out who will leak what false information, trace it back to the source, and plug up their leaks.
So they leave leftover call sheets where they draw allusions to characters that are well known that don’t exist. So they lay little traps in the call sheets to see if it gets passed on and then try to find the leaks thusly. This is some Watergate level sh*t man. The amount of thought that goes into like, ‘We gotta keep these secrets’…. Meanwhile, we’re living in a world where the most open secret on the planet is there’s 96 Spider-Men in the next Spider-Man movie, and everyone’s like, ‘Don’t tell the secret’, but we all know it. How fascinating man, the Marvel secret police.”
Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith isn’t the only star talking about the Marvel secret police and the training actors are now undergoing. Upcoming on Disney+, we have the Secret Invasion series starring Samuel L. Jackon’s Nick Fury. That series is based on the Marvel comics run of the same name and features such a prominent Marvel Cinematic Universe figure that audiences would imagine there would be spoilers everywhere. Marvel is keeping that show tightly under wraps.
Emilia Clarke was cast in Secret Invasion, asked about it on late night television, and appeared afraid to even confirm she was on the show. She said she wasn’t convinced there weren’t cars watching her house, which sounds like a joke, but also not far from the truth. Watch the below interview with Kingsley Ben-Adir who is also on Secret Invasion. He comments on months of training on keeping secrets and being told to lie. He says he hears the Marvel robots in his head telling him to say nothing. Cleary, the Marvel secret police have worked the actor over.
Getting a job in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a dream come true for many stars. With the right character, actors can continue working for years on multiple projects, meet filmmakers in high-profile positions, and gain a lot of attention for their careers. There are trade-offs though, and it sounds like the Marvel secret police watching their every move may be one of them. Considering how often stars slip and let little details out about their Marvel secret training and their fears about accidentally saying too much, it sounds like we may end up learning more about what this training involves than we will about actual Marvel movie plots, especially if the studio has their way.
One of the more interesting implications about this are the people who are actually hired for this job. Is the studio hiring ex-police officers for this kind of thing? They likely aren’t called the Marvel secret police, so what is their job title? These kinds of details haven’t been revealed yet, but likely will be over the next decade. Five years from now, there may be a Tell All, confessional memoir out there written by one of the Marvel secret police.
