As a part of its Phase 3 slate of nine films within the next six years, Marvel Studios has revealed Avengers: Infinity War to be the ultimate endgame, tying together all the Marvel superheroes for one final battle. The third Avengers installment will be split into two movies, with Part 1 slated for release on May 4th, 2018 and Part 2 to follow one year later on May 3rd, 2019. From what we know of Part 1, the story will see The Avengers assemble once more to take on the titan Thanos – briefly shown at the end of the first Avengers and later portrayed by Josh Brolin (Oldboy) in Guardians of the Galaxy – who implements an infinity gauntlet in order to take Universal power. Watch the leaked shaky-cam preview below for a first glimpse at the story line:
It is important to pay attention to the last few seconds of the preview where we see Thanos putting on a golden glove that presumably contains the infinity stones. Fans have speculated that the blue stone in Loki’s staff in The Avengers is the same stone seen in the infinity gauntlet. Whether or not Loki will appear in the final Avengers film is unclear, especially based on the implications behind Thor: Ragnarok, the franchise’s final installment and the Norse End of Days, also announced during the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) event yesterday.
Thor however, along with Captain America and Iron Man, all make appearances in the clip. It is all up to conjecture at this point if this is for the sake of posterity, as the Captain America series in particular will also be coming to a close after the just-announced Captain America: Civil War. With both the two catastrophic events of Ragnarok and the Marvel Civil War debuting ahead of Avengers: Infinity War, it is unclear who the main players in the film will be. Perhaps we’ll be seeing more from the new superheroes taking over in Phase 3, such as Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, the Inhumans, or the Guardians of the Galaxy. In the meantime, we can look forward to the release of Avengers; Age of Ultron on May 1st, 2015, when we will hopefully get a few of our questions answered.