Had things panned out differently, Captain Marvel would have enjoyed her MCU debut during Avengers: Infinity War – not unlike how Marvel’s Civil War drafted Black Panther into the equation back in 2016.
Alas, despite filming scenes with Brie Larson’s superpowered heroine, Joe and Anthony Russo decided against a Carol Danvers cameo, and instead settled for a post-credits stinger that would ultimately help establish the relationship between Captain Marvel and Nick Fury ahead of 2019’s female-fronted spinoff.
It takes place in the 1990s, of course, which goes some way to explaining Fury’s peculiar transmitter. But when it comes to Captain Marvel’s role in Avengers: Infinity War – or lack thereof – screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were adamant that introducing Carol Danvers in Avengers 3 would only limit Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, creatively speaking, as Captain Marvel would then be forced to honor that cameo or risk spoiling MCU continuity.
We were in the position we were in with Spider-Man and Panther where Brie was going to have to shoot her scenes, I think it’s OK to say, before she shot Captain Marvel so we can’t really talk about what we decided but it was clearly a conversation we had to have with Ryan [Fleck] and Anna [Boden] who didn’t exist yet before we started [Infinity War] so you are bringing directors on, all the while we’re trying to set up something that will work for our movie and not screw up their movie.
It’s by no means the first time that the creative duo have addressed Captain Marvel’s absence, and thanks to Collider’s exhaustive post-mortem, we’ve also gained a better understanding of Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and the Wasp, and how they’ll seemingly come together for the so-far untitled Avengers 4.
When it comes to the Captain Marvel-themed zinger, though, Christopher Markus stressed that a subtle reference to Carol Danvers was ultimately the right choice:
When we figured out Captain Marvel takes place in the past, and Fury’s in it, and they interact, we realized there’s a pre-existing…it’s more than just a ‘oh that one’s not dead, he’s getting up.’ It’s hinting at a whole path of story that isn’t in the movie, so it seemed legit to us.
At $1.83 billion and counting, Avengers: Infinity War has already earned its status as a box office titan. The question, really, is whether it can crack $2 billion when all is said and done.
