After years of theories, a forerunner for the title of next year’s Avengers 4 recently sprung up. According to sources, it’ll be called Avengers: End Game. Of course, this is one of the potential titles that’s been doing the rounds for a while but it’s now risen to the top of the pile thanks to the movie’s cinematographer apparently leaking it online.
Given how tough and sly Marvel’s security is – famously, the cast got fake scripts for Infinity War – it’s totally possible that this leak is actually a deliberate ploy from the studio to lead fans down the wrong path and to keep the title secret a little while longer. However, if it is genuine, it would directly link into the previous film, as the phrase was already mentioned by Doctor Strange in IW.Â
If you recall, just before he fades away into dust as Thanos wipes out half the universe, the Master of the Mystic Arts warns his friends that “we’re in the end game now.” This was always an intriguing line, as we weren’t quite sure what he was referring to. After all, his words suggested there was more to fight for, even though it looked as if Thanos had already won.
If we take it as red for now that the title really is Avengers: End Game, however, this might mean that a long-held fan theory about the implication behind Strange’s words could actually be correct. Essentially, the idea is that the hero’s saying that he foresaw one timeline in particular in which the Avengers saved the world. As such, it’s thought that he gave Thanos the Time Stone as he’d seen in this timeline that the Mad Titan needed to temporarily win in order for him to somehow be defeated. So, if End Game really is the title, it’d confirm that Josh Brolin’s big bad hasn’t won just yet and there’s more of the fight to come.
Of course, we’re not quite sure how the remaining heroes will be able to reverse what the villain did, but it’ll likely have something to do with traveling back into the past, as set photos have revealed that the events of The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and other previous MCU movies will be revisited. There’s also the adjunct to the theory that Strange tampered with the Infinity Stone himself, which could tie into how they manage to time travel in the first place.
If recent rumors are to believed, we could find out the real title of Avengers 4 when Ant-Man and the Wasp lands in just a few days. If not, then it’ll be the end of year, as Kevin Feige has previously suggested. Either way, we’ll keep you posted.
