If you were lucky enough to attend one of the two major conventions of the last couple weeks then you got to see the first footage of Avengers: Infinity War. The rest of us, however, are still waiting. Footage of next year's big Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover event, Avengers: Infinity War first debuted at Disney's D23 Expo, before being shown again this past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con. Many of the trailers and footage shown at both cons have since been put online, but the Avengers footage is still MIA. The millions of fans who weren't able to get into Hall H want their chance, but Infinity War co-director Joe Russo says that the footage that's been shown is designed for a specific audience, and that work needs to be done before it's ready for wider distribution. According to Russo...
You know, all I can say is that when the footage comes out we want it to be exactly right. So we are taking our time and working on that footage because, as you can imagine, the levels of visual effects in these movies are unprecedented and there are certain things in this footage at Comic-Con that works specifically for a Comic-Con audience. But when we go wide, to a wide audience, we have to make sure that footage works for a wide audience. So we're hard at work on that right now. I'm not going to give a timeline on it because I want to surprise people but, you know, hopefully, they're patient with us.
Unfortunately, Joe Russo doesn't go into detail with ComicBook.com regarding why exactly the footage was shown was somehow specific to a Comic-Con audience. Certainly, those in attendance were among the most die hard fans, not only did they jump at the chance to buy passes to the event, but the majority waited in line for hours in order to be sure they'd have a seat in Hall H for Marvel's panel. However, that doesn't necessarily explain why the footage that was shown was in some way specific for them. What exactly would a more general fan see in it that they wouldn't appreciate as much?
In the end, Joe Russo makes it sound like the footage shown at SDCC may never be released to the public, and that some other thing is being worked on for a public release at some point down the road. Marvel does tend to be more secretive with their footage than some of the other studios. At last year's San Diego Comic-Con they showed the first of the Team Thor videos to tease Thor: Ragnarok and while the clip was eventually released, it wasn't available to the public until Captain America: Civil War hit Blu-Ray several months later.
Keeping the footage under wraps is understandable, but at the same time, there are probably tens of thousands of people who would have been part of that Comic-Con crowd if time and money had allowed them. At the end of the day, the movie is 10 months away and so Marvel will have to release something publicly before long. It's just a matter of how much longer the rest of us will have to wait.
