“It’s all connected.” That’s what Kevin Feige and his team always tell us about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sometimes, though, it can be surprising the extent to which the different movies and TV shows tie-in to each other. For instance, a new set photo taken from location filming on Avengers: Infinity War reveals an unexpected callback to Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Twitter user @MCU_Tweets posted an image of a familiar statue that’d been spotted on the set of Infinity War in Edinburgh, Scotland. It depicts a mournful Asgardian warrior and was previously seen during Thor’s hellish hallucination in Age of Ultron. The vision was implanted in Thor’s mind by Scarlet Witch during the Avengers’ tussle with Ultron in South Africa.
A prop on the set of #AvengersInfinityWar hints at a very interesting connection to AGE OF ULTRON! pic.twitter.com/U0RoXwlndz
— MCU – The Direct (@MCU_Direct) May 5, 2017
You might recall that the scene in question kickstarted Thor’s quest to find out about the Infinity Stones, so it definitely has some wider significance than just being a freaky nightmare. Intriguingly, Heimdall told Thor in the sequence that they were dead and that the son of Odin had led them to Hel (the Asgardian underworld, duh).
It’s worth noting that Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, debuting as Thor’s new ally Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok this November, have also been seen on set recently. Should we expect Asgard to fall into Hel in Infinity War then? Alternatively, are the props department simply reusing the statue as generic Asgardian set dressing? It’s a possibility, though we’d like to think that Marvel have been playing an even smarter long game then we thought.
Avengers: Infinity War stars just about every major player in the MCU, as well as a few supporting ones, too. Namely, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Holland, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bethany, Sebastian Stan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Pom Klementieff and Josh Brolin. It’s set to arrive on May 4th, 2018 and its currently untitled sequel will then follow on May 3rd, 2019.