So Now You Can Sue Marvel For That Misleading Infinity War Trailer, Apparently

On Tuesday, December 20, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson issued a ruling on a case involving the 2019 film Yesterday.

According to it, movie studios can be sued under false advertising laws if they release deceptive movie trailers. The argument by the studio that movie trailers are entitled to broad protection under the First Amendment was rejected.

This ruling opens a serious can of worms – or opens a serious new avenue for disappointed fans, depending on how you look at things. Because even the biggest studios and most successful movie franchises are prone to releasing trailers which contents significantly diverge from what we see later in the corresponding movies.

For example, let's look at this side-by-side comparison of the trailer for Avengers: The Infinity War with shots from the actual movie:

Yes, the trailer probably was not trying to mislead the fans with the intent of drumming up more hype than the movie deserved. Probably.

But it is clear that not only most of it consisted of footage that was altered in various ways in the final cut in the film (albeit primarily through minor VFX improvements), it also included a number of shots that did not make it into the movie at all, or were altered to the point of no longer really being the same shots.

Most importantly, the trailer was significantly misleading on one major point. The charge of Avengers' B-team in the trailer included Hulk. That never happened in the movie. Bruce Banner never fully transformed into the Hulk again after getting beaten into a pulp by Thanos in the very first scene, and used one of Tony Stark's powered armors instead.

Note that the ruling above resulted from a lawsuit by a couple of Ana de Armas fans, who alleged that they watched Yesterday because they saw their favored actress in the trailer, but found that she was cut from the actual film.

Yes, absence of an actress is probably more significant that absence of a character's superpowered alter ego. But who knows what a judge would think, given the precedent? Some people with an axe to grind against Marvel Studios, or with hope to earn some quick cash (the above-mentioned fans are seeking $5 million in damages) might decide to check out.

Though hopefully all this buzz will just lead to studios, including Marvel Studios, being more accurate with their trailers, so we won't have to guess, whether we're actually going to see Hulk smashing things in a movie, or not.