Two VisionQuest spoilers in two days — and one of them wasn't even a spoiler
Marvel's newest leak machine is the star of its newest show. Look closely at what he actually leaked, and the pattern starts to look like a campaign.
VisionQuest premiered on Disney+ on October 14, and within 48 hours its young co-star Ruaridh Mollica — Tommy Maximoff, reborn in Thomas Shepherd's body — had been branded the "new Tom Holland" for two apparent slips. Fan accounts tallied them gleefully: "In 2 days he's leaked his own Funko Pop AND Billy's inclusion in the show."
Spoiler one is undisputed. Mollica posted his own unannounced Tommy Maximoff Funko Pop to Instagram with the caption "Swipe to the end to see a SNEAK PEEK of my Tommy Maximoff Funko-Pop (probably not allowed)" — white hair, green goggles, merchandise Marvel hadn't revealed.
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The second "spoiler," under a microscope
Spoiler two is where the r/marvelstudios thread hit the brakes. In an Entertainment Tonight interview, Mollica said of his friend Joe Locke — Billy Maximoff in Agatha All Along — "we actually shot our MCU stuff before we did the play, which was amazing." Headlines ran it as confirmation that Billy is in VisionQuest; the thread's second-most-upvoted comment did the reading the headlines skipped:
"Hold up he did not say Billy will be appearing in VisionQuest lol. He said him and Joe filmed their MCU stuff before they did the play… Wasn't a slip up confirming anything, just a misinterpretation by this outlet."
— a commenter on r/marvelstudios, 60↑
The comment is right on the text: "our MCU stuff" confirms nothing fans didn't already have. Agatha All Along ended with Billy leaving to find his missing twin — the twin Mollica now plays — and Locke was photographed at the VisionQuest premiere. The expectation existed; the quote just gave it a news peg.
Which brings up the thread's top comment, and the more interesting theory:
"Disney has been doing pretty good at driving engagement. I honestly believe these 'slips' are intended to drive engagement and media coverage."
— a commenter on r/marvelstudios, 25↑
The precedent supports the cynics. Tom Holland announced a Spider-Man trilogy before Sony did, confirmed the Infinity War space plot on Kimmel, and in 2018 Joe Russo told BBC Radio Scotland that "Tom's had a couple of slip ups in the past, he's on the black list now" — a decade of "accidents" that generated more coverage than most trailer drops, from an actor Marvel kept hiring and kept booking on talk shows.
Marvel put its most famous accidental spoiler on every talk show for ten years. Its newest show premiered Tuesday; its newest accidental spoiler was crowned by Thursday.
So the "new Tom Holland" label is less a scolding than a job description. One real leak, one manufactured one, a viral nickname in week one of an eight-episode run — if this is a problem for Marvel, it's a problem the marketing department appears to have budgeted for.
Previously we wrote: Joe Russo picked Tom Holland as the last movie star — Beekeeper fans have a better answer