“There will be two distinct periods. Everything before Avengers 4 and everything after.”
That’s Kevin Feige there, teasing the profound sea change that will occur within the MCU come 2019. Because after Black Panther, Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp and the long-awaited Captain Marvel movie, Marvel’s lucrative franchise will seemingly be flipped upside-down by the release of Avengers 4.
Story details are still being kept under lock and key, of course, but with rumors of time travel already doing the rounds – Thanos will be in possession of a full-fledged Infinity Gauntlet, after all – it’s abundantly clear that the MCU will never be the same once the Russo Brothers deliver their second and final Avengers sequel.
And that’s something Chris Hemsworth addressed while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live (via ComicBook.com), where the Thor actor teased the end of an era:
Yeah we shot most of last year in Atlanta back to back and it was a long long shoot. The first time I stop looking at the green tennis ball that represents the Hulk. The last couple of months it just felt like you wanted to get to the end and all of us were like ‘how many more days are left, how many more days’, and this last week I was sitting there and as they wrapped me all of a sudden it kind of hit me like ‘oh wait a second. I didn’t soak this up enough. I didn’t kind of make the most of it, I didn’t say goodbye to everyone or whatever because we’ve been doing this for seven years or something now and it’s been a pleasure.
Barring some unforeseen change of heart, Hemsworth will likely hang around after Avengers 4 sees a release in 2019. Besides, he’s already brainstorming ideas for a fourth Thor movie, so we’re crossing our fingers in the hope that the Phase One Avenger renews and/or extends that contract sooner rather than later.
With Thor: Ragnarok now in his rear-view mirror – look for the cosmic threequel to stage its home video release in March – Chris Hemsworth is quietly gearing up for the back-to-back release of Infinity War and Avengers 4. There are only 12 short months separating each big-name blockbuster, so when all is said and done, moviegoers will seemingly be left staring down the face of a radically altered MCU.