2018 was wild. Avengers: Infinity War came and went and, still, no Avengers 4 title. Then Ant-Man and the Wasp arrived and - you guessed it - still no Avengers 4 title. It took eight agonising months before we finally found out that Avengers 4: Endgame would be the title of the next Avengers movie. All that wait for one word. Why did it take so long? Kevin Feige has finally revealed why he (and Marvel) kept things close to the chest – and it’s a pretty obvious answer.
“I think I’d said that it all had gotten blown out of proportion to some extent,” Feige tells Collider about the Endgame reveal, perhaps forgetful of the fact that he himself said the Avengers 4 title was a spoiler for Infinity War, which inevitably helped build up the anticipation to unsustainable levels.
So, why was it held back? “It was a spoiler,” Feige explains, “Because if you knew before Infinity War came out that the next movie was called Endgame, then you know that there wasn’t an ending to Infinity War. But that had been the title of the movie from the moment we conceived of doing the two films.”
Sure, fair enough. Infinity War would have had less of an impact for general audiences if you knew a sequel with a more ominous-sounding name was just around the corner. Mind you, Marvel already has a track record when it comes to announcing movies upon movies upon movies, so fans are already used to having one eye focused on everything beyond the next MCU instalment, but the reasoning just about holds up.
Still, it doesn’t explain the long, long wait for Endgame’s title reveal, nor does it hold much weight when we already know that Infinity War and Endgame was originally meant to be Infinity War Parts 1 and 2. But I’ll yield to Kevin Feige’s far superior judgement on this one. He’s made billions of dollars and I *checks bank account* have not.
Here's hoping the new Marvel movies aren't held back in quite the same way...
