Tom Holland has a bit of a reputation. And we don't mean for being a loveable scamp and talented gymnast (though he's both of those things) – we're talking about him being an unstoppable spoiler machine.
The Avengers: Endgame star is known for opening his adorable mouth and revealing secrets of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that we weren't supposed to find out yet.
But is this fair? Has our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man actor actually dropped as many spoilers as we think? And how much does Disney play on his alleged verbal incontinence?
The evidence for the prosecution
The prevailing narrative is that Holland is so bad at keeping secrets that he "doesn't get a script" while working on these films to limit the number of spoilers he knows in the first place.
So what has our very own Peter Parker actually spoiled? We've compiled a list of the most notable instances.
An early case was when he revealed that there would be a third Spider-Man film to follow Homecoming and the then-untitled Far from Home. "Sorry, Marvel. Whoops," he said when he realised what he'd said.
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In the lead up to Infinity War during an interview where he was paired with Benedict Cumberbatch (a ploy director Joe Russo said was to prevent his revealing spoilers), he also let slip that the Quantum Realm would play some part in the upcoming Avengers film by using the term as an example of the difficult lines that the Doctor Strange actor had to get his head around in the movie. Once we had seen Infinity War, this also suggested that Strange would be back in Endgame despite his apparent dusting.
Holland was also accused of spoiling Infinity War in an appearance at a screening in Los Angeles, shouting "I'm alive!" before attendees had actually seen the film. They don't know about your bitterly upsetting death scene yet, Tom!
Not so guilty
But how spoilery are these examples really?
It's not technically a spoiler to say that a film will happen. You might be able to call it a 'leak', we suppose, but we could have guessed that Spider-Man would get three movies – just like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America so far – and this knowledge doesn't tell us anything about the plot of the MCU.
The Quantum Realm thing is spoilerish – hinting that it might play an important role in Infinity War (which it didn't) or Endgame (which seems likely). But then again, it could just mean that Doctor Strange will have a conversation with Ant-Man, a character we knew (or at least suspected at that point) of showing up in the two Avengers films.
As for Strange's survival, it hardly comes as a surprise. And it's not like he came right out and said it, like Dave Bautista.
We'd even give him a pass on the "I'm alive!" thing, which is less obvious before you've seen the film. We'd suggest that it was Cumberbatch, who followed him onto the stage repeating the same line, that made it look suspicious.
As for the whole 'not being allowed a script', as far as we can tell that's true of pretty much the whole cast. Only a very few people were allowed to know the "true plot" of Infinity War, and the others were given fake scenes to throw them off the scent.
Beyond these examples, everything is a bit pathetic. He once revealed a fact about his stunt double dangling from a helicopter and being dunked in some water. "At one point Spider-Man ends up in a lake," he admitted. Film ruined.
So what's the deal with his bad reputation?
There's no doubt that Holland's reputation for accidentally dropping spoilers is well established at this point. His castmates – particularly Cumberbatch, which whom he was paired with on a lot of Infinity War press – have made a running joke of it.
It's obviously something that worries Holland too. He admitted on Jimmy Kimmel Live that his hands were sweating at even the thought that he might accidentally say something he shouldn't.
We get frequent updates from Holland about what he nearly spoiled, how he avoided spoilers, and what Disney will do to him if he lets slip any more spoilers. Though he stopped short of actually spoiling anything.
What's interesting to us is how Disney has turned this reputation into a marketing opportunity.
As we've said, it's an ongoing joke and it reached its peak when Holland 'leaked' the title for his solo movie sequel, Spider-Man: Far from Home, on Instagram. As a bit of a social-media darling, there was no way that 'slip up' was going unnoticed.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige admitted that it had all been carefully orchestrated.
"There are certain logistics of the way these movies are made that meant that title would potentially be leaked in some way because it was going out into the world in various forms," he said.
"So Mr Holland took it upon himself to leak it for us."
His unreliability has become a good-natured joke and – it turns out – a convenient way of announcing things.
In reality, Holland is probably pretty good at keeping secrets. His death scene was one of the first shot when filming began on Infinity War in January 2017, and he didn't let it slip until that fan screening after the film was released. That's pretty good going, really.
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Whatever the case, Holland will never be as bad at spoilers as his Avengers co-star Mark Ruffalo, who accidentally live streamed the first ten minutes of Thor: Ragnarok from the premiere, well ahead of its general release.
So let's go a bit easier on Holland. He might even get through the release of Endgame spoiler free.
Avengers: Endgame is out on April 25 in the UK and on April 26 in the US.
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