Most sequels go bigger. Avengers: Age of Ultron, for example, added Vision (Paul Bettany), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and an Infinity Stone to the blueprint launched by Joss Whedon's first Avengers movie. This is an issue facing The Avengers: Infinity War. How do Joe and Anthony Russo top the extravaganza that was Captain America: Civil War, which boasted a marvelous Marvel splash page of a fight sequence in the legendary airport battle? The answer, according to Scarlett Johansson, is to bring an unprecedented level of superheroes to the screen in one eye-popping sequence. The actress known as Black Widow teased an Infinity War scene by saying:
At one point, I do think that the Infinity Wars, I think there are, at one point, 61 or 62 Marvel characters in it. There's a lot. I think in one particular scene, there's like 32 of us. There's so many of us. I don't even know who's a Marvel character and who's a crew member.
Thirty-two. When we recently compiled the list of all of the confirmed heroes and villains in The Avengers: Infinity War, we topped out at 25. That means that there's a very good chance some new heroes we haven't yet heard about could show up in Infinity War. From everything that we are learning, Earth's Mightiest Heroes are going to need every weapon in their arsenal to defeat Thanos (Josh Brolin) when the Mad Titan comes to town, seeking all of the stones that complete his gauntlet.
What might 32 characters look like on screen at the same time? Is it a battle? Could it be choreographed in the same fashion as the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War? Because one of the dizzying aspects of that scene was the way the Russos gave each Marvel hero their own moment in the sun. Yes, it marked the debut of Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in the MCU. But almost everyone had a moment in that fight, thanks to some expert planning by Joe and Anthony Russo. Revisit this edited version and see for yourself.
Scarlett Johansson expertly deflected the probing of The Late Show host Stephen Colbert as she tried to give him a Marvel nugget while also promoting her R-rated comedy Rough Night. But the pressure is only going to increase between now and May 2018, when The Avengers: Infinity War opens. The is easily one of the most anticipated movies in MCU history, with Marvel President Kevin Feige telling us that after Avengers 3 and 4, everything that we know about the MCU will be different. Find out more about Upcoming Marvel Movies by tapping those words. And look for Avengers: Infinity War in theaters on May 4, 2018.
