We will spend the first act re-assembling the team and dealing with/discovering the full impact of the snap. They will then use Ant-Man’s quantum thingy to go back in time and work thru avengers 1- maybe defeating thanos directly there so that the events in Infinity War never have a chance to happen. That would mean that affectively - the surviving avengers go back in time to defeat thanos and then likely disapear (die) in the process - but the avengers that are fighting loki on the ground in NY continue moving forward in time.
So - we get to kill them and keep them and fix it.
What I’d love to see is segments from alternate futures that he saw and avoided. Kind of like “Groundhog Day with Dr Strange”. Each segment could star a few heroes, watch what they do, then switch to another future after failure becomes clear. Plenty of chances for humor and one-off bits you could never put in a real time-line. There could be a few fake-outs where the audience is led to believe they’re finally seeing the best possible future, only to be twisted into failure. I think it could work.
Do this and have different heroes die in each iteration. After some deaths make the subsequent scenes without them…only to bring them back randomly. Keep the audience on their toes as to who is really going to die until the very end
If they don’t do it in the movie, they’re working on an MCU “What-if” cartoon series. I hope “What if they got the Gauntlet off Thanos?” is one of those.
Maybe that’s the key? Give it up at any point before that, and Tony maybe just glares at Strange in disgust and disdain and disbelief; but if a brink-of-death Tony sees the stone get given up so that Tony can live, maybe that — and only that — is what will push the genius to engineer up some kind of, uh, time machine?
What I hope to see, given that time shenanigans have ensued (and reality, to boot), is a post-credits scene that montages just a few glimpses of the universe as it is now. Things like an Avengers HQ exterior, a SHIELD helicarrier, Strange’s mansion, the Guardians’ ship, etc…and mixed in, the Baxter Building, Attilan, and that certain School for Gifted Youngsters. No persons in sight for those last three, just please include them!
Make that ‘no persons in sight’ for any location. Don’t confirm the existence of any particular characters; just leave it kinda open (barring what actually just happened in the movie).
I have a hunch that this will somehow hinge on the comic trope of alternate timelines/realities. This timeline of the MCU is gonna essentially be permanently altered and maybe the dead stay dead in this reality.
That’s how they eventually explain the recasting of the main characters without “rebooting” those franchises. Into The Spiderverse dipped our toe into these waters.
The old timeline will probably remain viable for a while with Captain Marvel, GotG and Black Panther sequels occurring before the Snappening. But after a respectful wait, we’ll see a new Cap, Iron Man and Thor. Not new people assuming those mantels, but just them in a alternate reality with slightly different evolutions (and actors).
These two ideas could go together. Maybe Strange and team had to delay Thanos long enough so that Thor can arrive on Earth with Stormbringer. If he gives it up earlier Thor doesn’t almost kill him.
They’ve already started building the groundwork for Stark/Avenger’s Tower becoming the Baxter building. He sold it off in Spider-man and the previews for Far From Home show construction being done on it.
I really doubt we’ll have a comic-style timeline retcon. That seems antithetical to the MCU as a whole. There’s no point to have a new Steve Rodgers and a new Tony Stark when you can just have a new Cap and a new Iron Man.
Also, while I’m sure Captain Marvel 2 will cover some ground between the first movie and now, I don’t see what would make a GotG and Black Panther semi-prequel very interesting.
I’m not a comic book reader (but ironically I love reading the Wikis and watching the various YouTube explainers) so I don’t know all the issues with that, but it seems like a pretty elegant solution for a “retcon” or is at least preferable to a Spiderman-style reboot or a Batman-style recasting. The MCU has the benefit of being able to pre-plan for this so it may seem like it’s much less of a crutch or a cop out when used here.
The main problem with the “mantel” swap is that not every character can do it. How do you swap out the actor for Thor? How do you swap out Gamora or Steven Strange or Bruce Banner?
I figure GotG3 and Blank Panther 2 will essentially follow the Ant Man and Wasp model of slotting in right before the events of Infinity War. Black Panther 2 could essentially wrap up with them accepting the exiled Avengers. GotG3 could be where they introduce Adam Warlock and continue the battle with the Sovereign and end with them getting the Asgardian’s distress signal.
Valkyrie for Thor. Amadeus Cho for Banner. Gamora is part of a group so she doesn’t need to be replaced. Strange is brand new, so we’re going to get a lot more movies out of him. But if they need to, they can easily slot in another wizard.
But Ant-Man wasn’t in Infinity War so it was fine not including him. And his movie came out just after. We’re at least a couple years away from GotG3 and Black Panther 2. They aren’t going to go back.
None of those would work. Especially Strange…the movies and comics aren’t called “Sorcerer Supreme” they are called “Dr. Strange” after Steven Strange, who is Busterbritches Crinklepants in the MCU. If they just recast the character we’re back in the old school morass of Batman, Superman and Spiderman reboots with diminishing returns.
Yeah…movies can’t be quite as random as the comics. No one is seeing any of those movies except for maybe the Thunderstrike one, though with Odin dead and Mjolnir destroyed in this reality that would require some creative crap for a origin story.
They didn’t think anyone would want to see Iron Man and Thor. They didn’t they anyone would want to see Guardians of the Galaxy. Next phase they’re doing The Eternals and Shang-Chi
I’ll give you Thor…but Iron Man was a high-confidence bet. That’s why he was first. Hulk was high-confidence too, but we see how those turned out. A .500 average ain’t bad.