The Russo Brothers, directors of the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, are also tackling the two-part Avengers: Infinity War for Marvel. You'd expect reporters to be asking questions about those later films, but not for them to actually answer any of them. In a lengthy interview with Forbes, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo talked about more than just Captain America: Civil War, they also got into a few vague details about Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and 2 (releasing May 2018 and May 2019 respectively).
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has spread out over time to include things like Agent Carter, Agents of SHIELD, and the growing Marvel Netflix catalogue, we previously only got extra content with the film characters on home releases, a.k.a. Marvel One-Shots. There have been five of those but none were added to Captain America: Winter Soldier or Guardians of the Galaxy. Kevin Feige said there were no plans for them to return but that they're always bouncing around ideas.
However, that doesn't mean extra content is gone for good. This is Marvel after all, and Marvel knows how to have fun with its fans. Anthony Russo told Forbes, “We have gone through a little bit of a transition with that content, We can”t go into too many details about this but we are thinking, very specifically, about to do new ways of what you are talking about with Avengers: Infinity War. We”re just in the beginning phases of figuring them out. Yes, DVDs are gone but there is this wonderful internet platform out there called YouTube.”
Ah yes, YouTube. But as the interviewer pointed out, making money off online content is not an easy task. “It can make money by creating anticipation for a movie in the same way that a trailer does,” Anthony said. “There could do more elaborate versions of trailers, for instance, that are shot specifically for online that will never appear in the movie but that may appear as a kind of short film.”
Joe Russo added, “We”re also talking to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram about ways to feed ancillary content to them and to viewers because it”ll go viral there and you can reach millions of people. The platform is changing but it is a lot easier to sit on your couch and Apple TV pops up rather than you having to get up and find a DVD, so it is what it is, and there are always new and different ways to reach the audience.”
We're still pretty far off from the next big team-up films but the Russo's admit they follow a logical path. “[Avengers: Infinity War is] a culmination of all the films in the phase that have preceded it. You know that Thanos is going to be in there and the majority of the Marvel Universe is going to appear in the movies,” said Joe. “Those are givens, but after that we can construct any narrative we want around it and what we think is the best execution of the story.”
Anthony chimed in with, “There are certain characters that you don”t know,” and Joe followed up, “New characters that are going to appear in Avengers: Infinity War. It”s a big sprawling ambitious movie, it”s about as ambitious as movies get and it should be, and the title alone indicates that there will be an incredible scape and scope to it.”
While I assume certain characters might fall between now and then, the scope of this film is scary even to me. But Anthony said it's still early on. “We don”t even have the first draft in on that script yet; we”re still in the outline phase. It”s hard not to talk about it too specifically now only because of spoilers but also because we”re still figuring it out.”
And of course inquiring minds wanted to know – will Spider-Man be in it? “To be determined,” said Joe. “We”ll see.”
Also revealed in the interview, something of importance to loyal Marvel movie fans, Captain America: Civil War after-credit scene talk. Joe told Forbes, “We can”t say who is going to be in it but we can say that there certainly could be one, or two, maybe three. We can confirm that you should stay sat in your seats when the movie is done.”
Oh geez. Just stay through to the next showing. Just to be safe.