Captain America Post-Credits Footage Kept from Press, Still Leaked Online

It's a Marvel movie so you knew it was coming, but still: Despite studio efforts to keep it from press in early screenings, a teaser sequence appearing at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger has leaked online. Multiple accounts and even a bootlegged video of the footage suggest that the leaks didn't come from the media, but from special public screenings held over the weekend. So why keep it from the press to begin with?

For their part, Paramount had its heart in the right place in going to great lengths to keep the secret in Captain America's extra footage under wraps, showing early press a cut of the film over the weekend that did not include the sequence. According to a studio rep, the plan was to keep the post-credits footage out of media screenings in an effort to save the surprise for audiences upon release. And yet the full footage reportedly played at military appreciation screenings of the film on Sunday, from which detailed descriptions and even (at least) one pirated video capture of the film have emerged online.

Paramount's in a tricky spot here; given the choice to preserve the surprise or play it fully and risk spoilers in the media and given the fact that, recently, Thor's post-credits scene leaked online weeks before its North American release, the decision to not show it to press makes some sense. Still, journalists and critics aren't likely to pirate films, especially during monitored screenings on a studio lot; it is an honor system, after all -- the press trusts studios to provide access to their product, and studios trust the press to cover fairly and not spoil their films.

The same doesn't always work with public screenings -- so why risk showing the teaser to the audience that has less of a reason not to spoil it? Maybe to conjure word of mouth and fan-driven buzz, or simply out of laziness and poor planning; either way, the secret's out, though you can expect Paramount to pull the footage before long.

An unexpected problem is that the editing move could backfire, in a way: If kept completely from press prior to the film's release, critics may feel shortchanged by the edit.

And if fans spoil themselves by watching grainy, skewed-angle pirated footage online instead of in theaters, is it their own fault? My advice: Wait until Friday and geek out in crisp, big screen glory.