We’re still waiting for Avengers: Infinity War to roll into theaters, but fans are already wrangling over the movie’s untitled sequel. During a recent interview, directors Joe and Anthony Russo answered a couple of those burning questions.
Fans have long speculated about why the sequel’s title continues to be such a well-kept secret, especially after Kevin Feige’s contradictory comments on the topic. In his original remarks, he asserted that the studio wouldn’t announce the title, because doing so would spoil the previous installment, which is scheduled for a May 4, 2018 release. He then appeared to backtrack when he said that not revealing the title was part of the Infinity War marketing strategy.
Joe Russo told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that Feige's original remark was more accurate than the one that followed. Apparently, the studio isn’t going to immediately announce the title when they release Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, they plan to give fans the opportunity to see the movie and become familiar with the story:
It is certainly part of the concept of the title that it’s advancing the narrative. We’re gonna sit on that until we feel the time is right, and when people have absorbed the first movie enough.
The Russo Brothers also tackled a hot topic that was recently triggered by some on-set photos. Certain Avengers 4 scenes will apparently involve time travel. With the Disney/Fox merger on the horizon, many suspected that those scenes would allow Marvel Studios to integrate the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
However, the directors made it clear that this was wishful thinking. Asked about his thoughts on the use of time travel as a plot device, Anthony Russo joked that they were "big fans of the technique". Joe added:
Look, it’s interesting, because yes, there are photos that always leak, and then there’s lots of conjecture about what those photos mean. Certainly, there is a five-minute sequence in Civil War around a piece of technology that was laid in for a very specific reason. So if you go back and look at that film, you may get a hint as to a direction.
There's little doubt that the he referred to the Binary Augmented Retro-Framing technology that allowed Tony Stark to revisit his last encounter with his parents in Captain America: Civil War. Here’s a set photo, in case you’re not convinced that he was alluding to the BARF technology:
The BARF technology on the Avengers 4 set (Photo Credit – @passorijoe/Instagram)
The interviewer then asked whether the directors might be filming faked scenes to catch the spoiler-seeking fan base by surprise. In response, Anthony suggested that they were "too tired to shoot anything that's not going in the movie". They went on to describe the recently announced Black Widow movie as “crazy exciting”, and added that they were “very happy” that such a rich and interesting character was going to have a standalone movie of her own.
