Marvel Studios Has Top Secret "Black Widow Room" at Their Headquarters to Stop Leaks
As far as finding out Marvel Studios' big secrets, apparently the house of ideas has more holes in it than it used to. In a major write-up on the subject, The Hollywood Reporter went deep into how so many of Marvel's secrets and spoilers have managed to make it out to the public earlier than intended. Recent examples of this were when key moments and cameos from both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness began to travel around Twitter, sometimes as early as four weeks before the film's release. The trade notes that in large part these leaks seem to be a result of more and more people, typically VFX vendors, working from home, but Marvel is still trying to hold onto some secrets.
In their report, THR notes that Marvel HQ has at least one room that is designed just for keeping secrets. According to the trade: "Marvel even has a Black Widow Room at its Burbank headquarters, without internet connectivity or windows. Outside cleaning crews are not allowed to enter." THR reveals that this space is reserved for "where sensitive subjects are discussed." It's unclear if sensitive subjects means casting, the MCU timeline, or even things like Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit against Disney, but it's seemingly the place where Kevin Feige makes big decisions.
One person that confirmed the existence of the "Black Widow Room" is Kaz Firpo, one of the original screenwriters on Eternals, who revealed that they worked on their first draft of the adaptation in this spot. They confirmed that, yes, there are no windows, but the room does have amenities that even it out.
"If we could, we would write every movie somewhere in nature with no people," Firpo previously told THR about the secret room. "Writing the Eternals with Kevin [Feige] and Nate and Chloé and these incredible collaborators, was a gift, even if we had to show up every day for nine months in a windowless room. At least the walls were covered with art by the incredible Ryan Meinerding, the incredible visual development team at Marvel. We write pages, they read the pages, and then they would draw and illustrate all these visions in our heads. And there was a free cereal bar."
Ms. Marvel star Iman Vellani previously confirmed that when spoilers do get out, or even before they can, Marvel Studios goes out of their way to put out fake leaks to combat them and keep fans on their toes. "r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers is my second home," the actress previously wrote in an AMA. "however i did leave the subreddit for two years during infinity war/ endgame once i saw that BARF case set photo leak which turned out to be a total misdirection from marvel security. they literally planted that! and i now have so much respect for marvels security team"