'Avengers: Endgame' Directors Explain Importance of Their Spoiler Ban

Avengers: Endgame was one of the most highly anticipated films of 2019, and immediately before and after its release in April, fan enthusiasm was running high--and running equally high was the threat of spoilers for the film. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo, however, maintained a stringent spoiler ban on both cast members and fans, working to ensure that viewers could enjoy the film without any advance knowledge. This week, they discussed the motivation behind and importance of the ban.

Regarding the moratorium on fan spoilers, the Russos explained that they wanted to respond to the potential for spoilers posed on the internet, as reported by ScreenRant. "It’s its own monster," Joe Russo said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "Whether there's malicious intent or compulsive intent to reveal story points of pop culture content, we wanted to make sure that we asked for a level of decorum in how all of that was dealt with."

“We certainly respect the idea that when you see a film, you want to discuss it, you want to talk about it, you want to share your experience,” Anthony Russo added. “And that's a really important part of the process. But it's trying to establish a window where people are given the opportunity to see the film.”

On-set, the Russos took a number of measures to prevent leaks, providing actors with only partial scripts and even giving fake portions of some. Although they could not do the same for fans, they implored viewers to not blatantly spoil the film for two weeks.

According to ScreenRant, the Russos would have ideally wanted a three-week window. However, the release of the newest trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home precluded this possibility, as it features insight on the state of the world following the death of Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame.

For our part, we’re glad that the Russos had such a tough policy on spoilers--we know that we wanted to discuss the film with everyone we knew, but it would’ve been far worse to see the film’s fun ruined because of spoilers.