In many ways,Avengers: Endgamefelt like a hugely satisfying series finale. If Marvel had stopped its cinematic universe there, audiences probably would’ve been happy with how the story of Earth’s mightiest heroes ended. But there’s far too much money to be made, so the MCU is charging ahead beyond the Infinity Saga.
Despite the fact that the Avengers disbanded at the end ofEndgame, there will inevitably be anotherAvengersmovie. For Disney, makingAvengersmovies is like printing hard cash. There will eventually be anAvengers 5in which the team reforms to take on a giant cosmic threat.
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When a fifthAvengersfilm goes into development, Marvel Studios may feel obligated to top what they did withEndgame. It’s only natural for the filmmakers behind a sequel to want to go bigger and bolder than the predecessor, but if that predecessor isAvengers: Endgame,the biggest movie ever made, that’s an unwinnable battle.Endgamehad more than a decade’s worth of build-up behind it, whichAvengers 5won’t have.
The reason whyEndgame’s payoffs worked so well is that Marvel spent years building toward them.Steve Rogers lifting Mjolnirwouldn’t be anywhere near as glorious if Chris Evans hadn’t spent eight years demonstrating why he was worthy. Tony Stark’s heroic sacrifice wouldn’t have resonated as much if it happened inIron Man 2or the firstAvengersmovie. These things take time.
It’s way too early to have those kinds of payoffs for the new generation of Earth’s mightiest heroes – even the already-established ones like Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange. Instead of trying to topEndgame’s scale and spectacle with a jam-packed ensemble and a universe-ending threat,Avengers 5should be more like the firstAvengersmovie, focused on assembling a new team and bringing them together to face a common enemy.
Joss Whedon’s originalAvengersfilm worked so well because of its focus on the characters. For all intents and purposes, it’sa movie that shouldn’t have worked. Teaming up a Norse god, a musclebound green monster, a World War II super-soldier, a billionaire in a metal suit, a leather-clad secret agent, and a guy with a bow and arrow was certainly ambitious. But it paid off, because Whedon’s script painted those characters as real people with real relationships. The six original Avengers bicker and refuse to work together until the supposed death of Agent Coulsonunites them against Lokiand his faceless alien army.
If Whedon hadn’t laid this groundwork,Endgamecouldn’t have been as emotionally engaging or full of fan-service payoffs as it was.Avengers 5needs to lay down some similar groundwork with new heroes like Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel. The movie should forge interpersonal connections among the team’s latest roster, showing us how they work together, as well as which heroes get along with each other (and which ones don’t). Then,Avengers 6,7, etc. can start to build toward anotherEndgame-sized epic to pay off all those characters’ arcs.
Since Sam Wilsonofficially became the new Captain AmericainThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s finale episode, it seems likely that he’ll be the one to reopen the Avengers Initiative. If Nick Fury isn’t too busy with S.W.O.R.D., he could help Sam to assemble a new team (or maybe a S.W.O.R.D. case will be what necessitates a new Avengers team in the first place). In addition to familiar Avengers like Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and the Scarlet Witch, the new team could also feature Shang-Chi, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, the Eternals, and Kate Bishop’s Hawkeye.
It’s unclear who the Avengers will come back together to fight. TheLokifinaleintroduced a variant of Kang the Conqueror, whose control over the sacred timeline could make him an even graver threat than Thanos. TheSecret Invasionseries on Disney+ will establish that the MCU’s Earth has been taken over by Skrulls disguised as powerful humans. This globalBody Snatchers-style threat could be what gets the Avengers to reunite.
Whoever the villain turns out to be, they can’t show all their cards inAvengers 5. The first and secondAvengersmovies teased the threat presented by Thanos before the third one brought him into the limelight. Like Thanos, the Avengers’ next big bad should loom larger and larger over Earth’s mightiest heroes over the course of a couple of MCU phases before finally flexing the full force of their power inanInfinity War-style event movie.
It’s likely that, if he’s figured it out yet, Kevin Feige has a great strategy for theAvengersfranchise going forward. As the one who spearheadedEndgame’s setups and payoffs across the course of a decade, Feige is the last person who would want to undermine the triumph ofthe Avengers’ last stand against Thanos. Whatever he has planned forAvengers 5will probably be awesome.
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