Every Time The Spider-Man: No Way Home Trailers Lied To Us

Contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: No Way Home"

There are two things the Marvel Cinematic Universe does exceptionally well. It knows how to create an interconnected franchise where heroes and villains from different individual projects can interact across film and television, and it knows how to lie to its audience. In fact, the lying part might just be at the heart of what makes the MCU so darn compelling.

The judicious use of careful misdirection and outright deception to keep fans guessing ahead of major releases is nothing new for Marvel watchers at this point. There are numerous examples of a trailer for an upcoming film containing one scene that turns out radically different in the finished product. For instance, in the trailer for "Thor: Ragnarok," Thor has both of his eyes during the climactic battle against Hela in Asgard. Of course, the final product reveals that he's lost one of his eyes, courtesy of Hela, a nice little homage to his dearly departed dad. 

In other instances, some scenes are straight-up missing, like the infamous "Avengers: Infinity War" shot with all of the heroes running toward the camera. That's nowhere in the actual film. As one of the biggest films the MCU has ever produced, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is no exception to this rule. Now that the movie is finally out, let's look back at the trailers to see all the times we were deceived.

When you don't want to reveal a villain for "No Way Home," sometimes the easiest thing to do is to cover them up in post-production. In the Spidey three-quel, many of the villains were clearly revealed ahead of time, but Sony and Marvel clearly wanted to preserve some of the "Who's going to be in it?" mystique for later in its campaign.

That appears to be the case for the Lizard (Rhys Ifans), who was sorta kinda revealed early on in the marketing campaign. The very first trailer for "No Way Home" that came out included a scene where Peter stands in front of a magical barrier. It seems innocuous at first — until a mysterious figure leaps toward him in an obviously hostile manner, but is stopped short by the partition. Many speculated who the individual could be, with many correctly guessing it was Lizard. (This is Marvel we're talking about. The fans always know.) After all, it's not like Spider-Man has had a ton of animalistic antagonists throughout his big-screen adventures, so Lizard makes for the most likely culprit.

In the actual movie, no guessing is required. Lizard is in full view in this very shot, so it's clear the sequence was darkened for the trailer to avoid giving away the identity of the attacker just yet. Of course, that all changed for the second trailer, in which Lizard is in full view. We suppose Marvel didn't mind letting people know Lizard would be in the movie; they just wanted to wait until the opportune moment arose. It's part of the studio's genius that little reveals like this one were only doled out in drips and drabs leading up the monumental theatrical release.

Here's the one you've all been waiting for.

Fans immediately suspected something was up when the second trailer included a scene where Tom Holland's Spider-Man leaps into action against Electro (Jamie Foxx), Lizard, and Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church). It seemed weird that Holland's version would try to fight three villains on his own, especially when it really seems like Electro and Lizard are aiming away from Holland. Was this yet another trick of perspective and fancy editing? Were there two unseen Avengers flanking Spidey? Was Stephen Strange in on the action? Or was it what everyone assumed for months — that the multiversal antics of the MCU's Phase IV would allow for the return of two former Spider-Men?

Things only got more intriguing with the Brazilian trailer leak. The above-mentioned sequence goes on just a couple of seconds longer than what we got in the States, and it appears as though something hits Lizard in these extra moments. His head violently moves backward, the result of some unseen force generated out of frame. As it turns out, he was kicked by Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man variant, an attack that was hidden in the trailer. One can hardly blame Sony for this cover-up as the studio adamantly tried to keep Garfield and Tobey Maguire's presence in the movie a secret until the very last second. It was a valiant effort, but fans long suspected they'd pop up sooner or later in the flick. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to get one over on Marvel fans.