Why Avengers 3 and 4 are No Longer a Two-Part Story

Why Avengers 3 and 4 are no longer a two-part story

When first announced to the world, Marvel Studios revealed a title card that said Avengers: Infinity War Part 1: May 2018, Part 2: May 2019. Since that time though, things and plans have changed. The first movie is now simply Avengers: Infinity War and the other film… remains without a title.

While on the set of the upcoming third Avengers, co-director Joe Russo spoke about the decision to go back on the two-part nature of the films, saying fans should think of the next film more as a sequel than a second part of the same story.

“It’s simply the same thing in the way that ‘The Winter Soldier’ relates to ‘Civil War,’ and the way that ‘Civil War’ relates to ‘Infinity War.’ These two movies will also relate, there’s a narrative thread that is connecting these films, but at the same time, there’s an independence in terms of what the experience is or where the story goes. It isn’t a true two-parter, and I think the two-parter concept came back when Marvel decided they were going to culminate the MCU, it was going to be a two-movie deal. But as we developed the movie, in execution, it ended up being more of two singular expressions.”

Speaking further on the topic, Russo compared the decision to how the final Harry Potter novel was split into two feature films when it was adapted. The upcoming Avengers 4 will be different in that, though it functions as a sequel, it will feature different heroes at the forefront than Infinity War.

“We always try to make each film different so they don’t get repetitive. This kind of serialized storytelling, outside of ‘Harry Potter’ which was a distinctive story that was told over that eight movies, you have to keep evolving. You have to keep evolving who’s at the forefront, how you’re laying the story out, because I think rigor mortis will set in very quickly. So for us, we absolutely are very, very particular about who carried the ball on this movie, and who will carry it on this movie because each character represents a different theme, each character has different wants, and that can shape and color and re-tone an entire film depending on who you’re following. Especially in stories this big.”

Avengers: Infinity War already has a confirmed cast that includes Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Hulk, Black Widow, and many, many others; but who do you think will be getting more screen time in the fourth movie instead? And why? The film also has a Mad Titan running around the galaxy in search of Infinity Stones, and he might just take down a hero or two along the way.

Avengers: Infinity War arrives in theaters on April 27.

Check back here on Friday for our interview with stars Chris Evans (Captain America) and Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) from the set of Avengers: Infinity War!