User blog comment:Spencerz/Can I Have Your Attention? (All Users Please Read)/@comment-1895174-20121126052637

I can think of two other situations similar to Hulk's cut cameo from The First Avenger. The post-credits scene to Thor was originally going to be Captain America frozen in the ice, although I don't think it was supposed to be Chris Evans in the shot. This is similar to the post-credits scene of Iron Man 2, which featured Coulson discovering Thor's hammer in a ditch, in that it directly set up the next film in the MCU. The other would be Dominic Monaghan's character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. For the longest time, his character was confirmed (not rumored, but confirmed) to be Barnell Bohusk a.k.a. Beak, until his character was rather abruptly changed to be Chris Bradley, a completely different character shortly before filming commenced.

Now, as someone who will make edits to the pages for upcoming films when material is confirmed, here's my three biggest pet-peeve edits I see users consistently making:


 *  Unverified material : Either as unsourced edit or one that's sourced but isn't confirmed nor from a reputable source. This, like most of my peeves, has to do with characters.  When these films are in development, the rumor mill is churning out crap relentlessly, and too many of these get taken as fact.  One recent example is Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  The moment news broke that he was offered the role, his appearance in the film was treated as fact.  An actor being offered a role does not mean he will appear in the film, nor does it necessarily mean that character will appear as well.  Christopher Nolan offered Leonardo DiCaprio the role of The Riddler for The Dark Knight Rises, and John Malkovich and Ann Hathaway were in talks to play Vulture and Black Cat (respectively, of course) before Spider-Man 4 was canned.  Furthermore, anyone who's followed the production history behind next year's Man of Steel would know that a number of characters in that film have gone had two or three different actors attached to play them at different times.  So, while Mackie was eventually cast in the film, an actor being offered a role does not amount to anything.  This thinking should also apply to rumor about Jamie Foxx playing Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, as well as any rumor concerning casting Harry Osborn or Sharon Carter.


 *  Premature Character Pages : There's really no reason for a character to get his own page before the movie he appears in debuts. A character's history in a movie may very greatly from his comic book counterpart.  Take, for example, the Mandarin.  His year is about half a year away, and all we've seen of the film is one trailer.  Yet, he has his own page.  A page that will probably remain blank until the film is released.  There's no reason for him to have a page at this point.  Heck, he might not even be called "the Mandarin" in the film since a) Ben Kingsley is decidedly not Chinese (or from any other East Asian ethnicity), b) the terrorist organization he's associated with is from Afghanistan, and c) no villain in the Earth-199999 universe has gone by his moniker save the Red Skull.  So we've got a page that remains blank for months that will likely have to be moved when the film comes out anyway, not to mention how long it might take to move it, since some Earth-8096 pages have had a move tag on them since the beginning of the year, if not longer.  How does this page help the site?  It's only an annoyance.  This is why I tend not to link for characters who haven't premiered yet, not even leaving a redlink, since that might encourage someone to go ahead and make the page.  But alas, these pages get made anyway.


 *  Intentional Spoilers : I really should have just called this one "The Winter Soldier". As editors on this site, we probably all know who the Winter Soldier is.  However, we should remember that his identity was originally intended as a surprise, and we should assume the film will treat this information in a similar fashion.  After all, only a fraction of people who see the movie when it's released in April 2014 will have read the comics.  If the people behind the film want the Winter Soldier's true identity to be kept a secret, then we shouldn't go and spoil it over a year before the film comes out.  I remember how upset Marvel was that Sam Jackson's cameo in Iron Man was spoiled well before that film came out, and how Warner Bros. had to consistently release statements confirming that Marion Cotillard would not be playing Talia al Ghul in TDKR.  Personally, I have no problem with spoilers, but this is primarily for the developers' sake.  As a loyal and devoted fanbase we shouldn't be wrecking Marvel's plans before they can even begin.