Phantom Facebook Pages Could Spoil Marvel's Comic-Con Reveals

Before we even get a sentence into this, it should be noted the following is purely speculative. Because of the nature of the various social media platforms involved in the world of digital media, really anything is possible — both from an official studio standpoint and from fan's abilities to create things on a whim. That said, feel free to bust out your tinfoil hat and join us on this rabbit hole we're about to jump down — sound good?

While mistakenly entering a Facebook URL earlier this evening, I managed to find myself at Facebook's classic "404" page. For the uninitiated, a 404 page is something implemented by programmers and the like to appear should someone try accessing a directory that doesn't exist on a particular site's servers. Instead of breaking the whole site, it's something to say "Hey, the site still exists, you just tried going to a page that doesn't." You can see what Facebook's 404 page looks like below.

So I got to thinking — when it comes to any Hollywood studio, or any marketer in the entire world for that matter, Facebook is often times at the root of a digital marketing plan. Marvel Studios uses the platform extensively for each of their films, with each franchise getting their own page. Because of that, I tried searching a few pages that I figured would already be reserved for movies presumably being announced on next week at San Diego Comic-Con.

While some searches yielded the above 404 page that proves the particular pages don't exist on Facebook, I did manage to come across a different screen when searching two pages in particular — Facebook.com/BlackWidow and Facebook.com/MarvelsEternals. When searching those URLs, a different screen pops up saying that particular content isn't available. Thanks to working in digital media in a past life, I quickly recognized this screen as what you see when a page is created but not made public. That means there are pages out there that reside at the URLs but we just can't see them yet.

Now this may all seem pretty elementary because we all expected both of the films to be announced at San Diego Comic-Con regardless. But what this does prove, should it be official pages from Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, is that there are two pages built likely with marketing collateral locked and loaded, ready to go for an official announcement. That means technically, the pages could be decorated with logos, key art, and the like in preparation for the launch after Marvel Studios' Hall H panel next weekend.

In support of the pages being official, there isn't really a rhyme or reason for Marvel Studios' URL naming behind their movies. While some of their bigger pages are styled like Facebook.com/Avengers or Facebook.com/Thor, others ended up like Facebook.com/CaptainMarvelOfficial and Facebook.com/BlackPantherMovie. Does this mean we're getting the whole "shebang" at SDCC next week? Could the marketing for both Black Widow and The Eternals be starting within a matter of days?

What do you think Marvel's going to end up revealing at San Diego Comic-Con? Share your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt!

Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home are now in theaters while Captain Marvel is now available wherever movies are sold.