No fan can wait until Avengers: Endgame hits theaters. For those who have been following the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the beginning, Endgame will be the culmination of over 10 years of work. However, for one fan, who, unfortunately, does not expect to live to see the big finale, things just got a little brighter. It seems that Disney has been in touch with a young man dying of cancer and he will likely get to see the new film early, in order to be sure he sees it at all.
The story started only a few days ago when somebody going by the name Alexander q on Reddit posted about his situation. He's suffering from cancer of the mouth and the liver and is also going through bone marrow failure. He had heard of other fans with terminal illnesses getting access to early screenings of films and thus decided he would see if something like that could happen with him.
In a recent edit to his original post, Alexander has revealed that he has been in direct contact with Disney and they are currently working out the various options that will allow him to see Avengers: Endgame sometime very soon.
This is certainly wonderful news for Alexander and the sort of thing that will likely warm the heart of even the most jaded amongst us. Many of us who are anxiously awaiting Endgame can probably imagine the heartbreak we'd feel if we thought we'd never be able to see it.
This has become something of a trend in recent years, but it's one that I'm certainly happy to see. One terminally ill Star Wars fan got to see The Force Awakens early after getting his story picked up by the media, and he died only a few days later. Since then, we've seen other seriously ill people be given early access to other films as well as video games.
There are probably more people in the world who would like this sort of treatment than can possibly receive it, which is the only unfortunate part. Still, it's nice to see these studios be willing to take these steps. It's certainly good PR for them, but it's also simply a nice thing to do for somebody whose time might be limited. It would have been easy for Disney to have made this sort of thing a one-time occurrence with Star Wars. Having done it once it was guaranteed that others would ask for the same favor, but the studio seems more than willing to continue to honor such a request.
He'll almost certainly have to sign a mountain of non-disclosure agreements to help ensure that he doesn't tell anybody what he saw in the film, so the rest of us will have to wait until release to know what happens in Avengers: Endgame.
