Avengers: Doomsday Countdown Teaser Hides the Film's Title in Its Clock

The Russos marked exactly one year until Avengers: Doomsday hit theaters by posting a new teaser built around a countdown clock. It went up at 3:00 a.m. East Coast time, midnight on the West Coast. If you paused it at the right moment, the clock briefly read doomsday. Some fans took that as a hint that something else was coming within hours. I didn't think so. To me it read as a marketing touch, sneaking the title into the clock.

The clock mirrors the Doomsday clock inside the film. We had already seen that mechanic at the end of the first teaser trailer, which leaked before its theatrical debut. This new teaser had one small detail worth breaking down, and it led into a wider question about how Marvel handled its marketing around that first teaser.

The Avengers: Doomsday teaser opens on a clapperboard crediting the Russos

The teaser opens on an Avengers: Doomsday clapperboard, the kind directors used old school to call action. There's writing on it for a scene. Below that, it says directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. It also lists the cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel.

Cinematographers play a major role in how a film ends up looking. Many great cinematographers have a distinct style, and that's what goes into the image. That's why his name is on this clapperboard.

Then the teaser shows the Avengers: Doomsday countdown clock. It starts a full year away, with 12 months on the display and the rest of the clock following.

Paused at the right click, the countdown clock spells doomsday

If you pause on one of the clicks in the background at the right moment, the clock reads doomsday. Some fans pointed to this and argued that a five hour reading would still land early in the day on December 18. Their theory was that a trailer might be coming, and that the little doomsday meant five hours until it dropped.

I didn't think so. I think it's there to tease Doomsday itself. You could read the start of it as sitting on a five mark. But M isn't a number distinction, and neither are D, A and Y. So I think it's more of a marketing ploy, sneaking the title of the film across the clock where they can, not teasing anything coming.

The teaser went up at midnight Pacific and 3:00 a.m. Eastern. By the theory's own math, anything new would have arrived around 8:00 a.m. on the East Coast. "I'm not saying it won't, but I highly, highly doubt it." I saw it as part of the marketing.

Marvel's marketing week for Avengers: Doomsday could be seen as a disaster

Depending on which side of the fence you were on, you could consider Marvel's marketing that week an absolute disaster. There were that many leaks, some of them coming from inside the company, right before the first teaser went live in theaters.

Marvel released that teaser to the public and thought it could stop it from leaking. It leaked days before it even reached theaters, because someone who works in one of them didn't care enough to protect it. There was a big piracy and privacy statement before it played, and fans knew exactly what to do and not do with it. People didn't care.

So I wondered whether this would change the approach going forward. Maybe it would be the last time we'd see them do anything like this.

The first teaser only reintroduced Steve Rogers, and maybe not our Steve

I've argued continually that these teaser trailers are small and insular, perhaps focusing on one character each, and that this sort of downplays what they are as teasers. There aren't a million Easter eggs in there. There isn't much of a look at anything beyond bringing Steve Rogers back into the Avengers films.

We don't even know if that's our Steve. We assume it's the version who returned the Infinity Stones. For reasons we've discussed, it could be another variant from somewhere across the multiverse.

So I'm not sure the first teaser worked out the way Marvel planned, or had the effect it was hoping for. But everyone was talking about it for weeks before it dropped. I'm not sure the leak undercut anything by setting the internet buzzing.

Marvel was after the average moviegoer, not the diehards

There's a tier of fans right behind the diehards and hardcores who follow coverage like mine. They know Doomsday is coming. They even know Robert Downey Jr. is back. But they don't think about it every day, and they aren't looking a year ahead to release. You might call them the average moviegoer. Many of them were about to head to theaters for Avatar.

Marvel Studios was looking to capture that audience. It knows it has the diehards already. Those are the people who buy tickets to the so called underperforming Marvel movies. It knows we're coming back for Doomsday. It wants everybody else.

So it led with the surprise that Chris Evans is back. For those of us who follow this closely, that was old news. The Hollywood Reporter point blank confirmed on December 9th, over a year earlier, that Steve Rogers was back and that Chris Evans would return for both Avengers films. For many moviegoers heading to Avatar, though, it would be a big reveal. They might not even have known they were about to see a teaser trailer for Doomsday.

Lapsed fans I know all plan to see Avengers: Doomsday

That may sound unbelievable to fans who keep up every day. But people fall all over the spectrum of MCU fandom. Many in my personal orbit were diehard fans who fell off somewhere along the Multiverse Saga.

I asked them point blank whether they would see Doomsday in theaters, because I knew they had skipped some of the recent films, including Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts. It was an "unequivocal yes across the board."

Why I think the Doomsday marketing will work whether or not it landed as planned

Fans have had mixed opinions. Some were happy to get extra footage, and this much this early. Others thought it was a terrible idea that shut out those who care most by putting the teaser behind what amounted to a four week paywall. I've done a 180 myself because of the nature of these teaser trailers.

Still, I think Marvel Studios can't fall down with this marketing. Whether or not it made the impression the studio intended, it got the discourse going, and it was set to reach many people over those four weeks who otherwise wouldn't know what's going on.