Ever since the devastating ending of Avengers: Infinity War, moviegoers have been dying to see what happens next and find out just what’s become of not only half of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. The fourth crossover tentpole of the franchise, Avengers: Endgame, will see theatrical release just under a year later, hopefully with all our questions answered.
The first trailer for Endgame has now arrived to give fans hope that the surviving members of The Avengers will defeat Thanos and fix the galactic genocide he caused with his attainment of all the Infinity Stones and a snap of his fingers. Some familiar faces not seen in Infinity War now join the remaining original MCU heroes as the movie also just revealed a release date that’s a little sooner than expected.
Watch the trailer below after learning everything we know so far about the highly anticipated sequel.
Obviously there are SPOILERS for Infinity War from here on.
Who is left from Infinity War to star in Avengers: Endgame?
The survivors of the snap, as we’re reminded with the first trailer, include Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who is drifting alone in space, and Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who are working together to figure out how to deal with Thanos’ wiping out of 50% of all living creatures.
As we learned after the release of Infinity War, much of the follow-up movie will revolve around Captain America and Natasha (Black Widow). According to screenwriter Stephen McFeely (per BuzzFeed):
We had so many characters in movie 1, and we knew it was a two-movie conversation. Some characters were better served in movie 2 after this event. We were making some choices based on some characters we knew were going to leave us at the end of the first movie, so they got highlighted in the first movie. And some who were going to be in the second movie more maybe got less attention or less screentime [in Infinity War] — I’m thinking of Cap and Natasha, specifically. It’s about the story we wanted to tell in movie 2, mostly.
Briefly appearing in the trailer, Thor, Hulk, and Nebula are also still around. Not shown, War Machine, Rocket, Okoye and M’Baku were all last seen alive in Wakanda (see the full list of who lived and who died here), so presumably, they’ll all be back for Endgame in some capacity, as well.
Will Hawkeye and Ant-Man finally join in the fight?
Joining this round after sitting Infinity War out will indeed be Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), whose return is confirmed in reveals in the first Endgame trailer. The character has a new look, a new weapon of choice, and a new identity — as “Ronin.” And he seems to be out for blood — did he lose his family in the snap?
There’s also Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), who shows up at the Avengers’ front door with a hint that he knows how to help. And he’s got the van we saw at the very end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, when he seemed to be trapped in the Quantum Realm.
So the Quantum Realm is the key to reversing Thanos’ damage?
That’s not confirmed but very logically assumed by Ant-Man’s eager appearance in the first footage we’ve seen from the movie. Perhaps there will be some time travel involved, courtesy of that mysterious part of the MCU.
Do we know yet the whereabouts of other heroes whose status was never made clear?
As we noted in our list of who lived and who died, there are some characters whose status was never made clear by the movies nor the filmmakers. One of those is Black Panther’s sister, Shuri, whose face is seen in the first Endgame trailer with a caption that she is missing.
Also, Captain Marvel has to show up, right?
We can assume based on the symbol on Nick Fury’s pager in the Infinity War post-credits scene that Captain Marvel will definitely be flying into Avengers: Endgame ready to help save the day/universe. McFeely also promised in the BuzzFeed interview that Captain Marvel, which opens in February and is set in the 1990s, will also connect to the events of the Avengers sequel:
Put yourself in our positions two years ago. We’re looking at a blank wall, and it says Avengers 3, Ant-Man and [the] Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers 4. So there are four big shoeboxes, and we’re responsible for the bookends. As we’re going through deciding what we want to do, we have these two shoeboxes in the middle that you can either look at as burdens or opportunities.
Will the characters who died in Infinity War be resurrected?
The only thing that has kept Marvel fans from being totally devastated by the deaths in Infinity War is the assumption that most will be reversed in Endgame. After all, nobody is truly dead for long in comic books — or comic book movies. And in the comic series Infinity War is based on, the characters wiped out by Thanos’s powers are revived by another character, Nebula, after she takes possession of the Gauntlet.
Sadly, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFreely said early on that’s not the direction the next movie would go in. Markus told BuzzFeed:
[Avengers 4] doesn’t do what you think it does. It is a different movie than you think it is. Also…[the deaths are] real. I just want to tell you it’s real, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will be able to move on to the next stage of grief.
What about the characters who have more movies on the way?
Among those who disappeared at the end of Infinity War are Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Star-Lord and most of the other Guardians of the Galaxy. All of them either have definite sequels in the works or, especially in the case of the massive hit Black Panther, are expected to. McFeely addressed T’Challa’s death in the BuzzFeed interview specifically:
Remember, when we’re writing [Infinity War], and even shooting, there is no Black Panther movie. We don’t know it’s going to be so good, so effective, so resonant. And we had to treat all these characters the same. People who leave us [in Infinity War] are the leads of their own franchises. And Black Panther’s no different.
Also, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige continues to claim that Avengers 4 is a certain ending to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it, though that has often just seemed like a conclusion to a certain storyline. Last fall, though, Feige hinted to Vanity Fair that movies such as the next Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy films, and anything after Avengers 4, will be a new era of canon:
There will be two distinct periods. Everything before Avengers 4 and everything after. I know it will not be in ways people are expecting.
Will any more characters die in Endgame?
Oh yeah. For a long time, fans have anxiously expected that Iron Man and Captain America will die at some point because actors Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans are leaving the franchise. They survived Infinity War‘s brutal ending but they could be next. Co-director Joe Russo told Variety:
For us, there will always be stakes and the stakes have been progressing from film to film. And I think you can extrapolate that they will continue to deepen in Avengers 4.
And specifically when asked about the fates of Iron Man and Captain America, Joe Russo answered “with a sly smile”:
Just you wait.
Will Endgame be even longer than Infinity War?
This is very likely. And considering Infinity War has a running time of two hours and 36 minutes, that means Avengers 4 is going to be really, really long, as Joe Russo admitted to Collider, though this could change:
It could easily be a three-hour film but I think that we’re very hard on the material, we like it to play at a certain pace, so I’m sure we’ll squeeze it. We have a whole year of work left on that movie. I do think it’ll be longer than Avengers 3.
When can we see the movie?
April 26, 2019.
Watch the first Avengers: Endgame trailer:
[embedded content]
