Marvel’s Phase 3 kicks off with next year’s Captain America: Civil War, a movie which promises to shake the foundations of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to its very core. While it begins with that, it will end with the two-part Avengers: Infinity War as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes battle it out with Thanos, a story that’s been building since The Mad Titan reared his ugly head in The Avengers in 2012.
Talking at a recent Q&A to promote the DVD and Blu-ray release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Kevin Feige was asked about the build-up to Avengers: Infinity War and revealed that we’ll be seeing the other two Infinity Stones very soon:
“You will see the other two, sometime in phase three for sure. There’s a gauntlet that needs to be filled.”
Feige then went on to confirm that two Infinity Gaunlets do indeed exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the one we saw Thanos pick up in the mid-credits scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron and the other which was essentially just an Easter Egg in the first Thor movie. As for how much planning has gone into moments like that and setting up Avengers: Infinity War, the Marvel Studios President added:
“Yes, in broad strokes. Sometimes in super specific things, but for the most part in broad strokes that are broad enough and loose enough that if through the development of four or five movies before we get to the culmination, as you say, we still have room to sway, and to go, and to surprise ourselves in places that we end up.”
Finally, producer Jeremy Latcham weighed in by shedding some insight on how the two-part movie is going to set the stage for Phase 4 and why we should prepare ourselves for a very different Avengers by the time we reach that point.
“Well I think it definitely is an end to some version of the team that we’ve come to know as The Avengers. And I don’t know exactly whats going to happen yet in that film, but I think we start to hint at it at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron that the team will be evolving. But the ideas and ideals that make The Avengers still exist, and I think thats part of what makes this culmination will be: we’re seeing this version of the team doing this thing to save this universe, this galaxy, however you want to put it, and we’ll see where this goes. So its not the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it will be the end of part of it for sure. We’re still trying to sort out which parts. (laughs)”
Interestingly, Latcham also hinted that one of the Infinity Gauntlets isn’t real, something which will no doubt factor into both Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War.