“Avengers: Endgame” has grossed an astonishing $2.730 billion worldwide. It’s the second highest grossing film of all time, and it’s just under $60 million away from beating the “Avatar” all-time worldwide record of $2.788 billion globally, though its grosses have slowed to a crawl of late. Can it beat the James Cameron film? That’s a story for another time. And speaking of potentially tantalizing stories that need to be put on hold for the moment, the ‘Endgame’ filmmakers have an intriguing story of this ilk that they would like to tease.
The future of the MCU, now that its key players are leaving, is obviously in a little bit of flux. Not only are stars’ like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson departing from the universe (with the latter getting one more film), but ‘Endgame’ directors and MCU masterminds Joe and Anthony Russo and screenwriting architects Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely— major part of Marvel brain trust that has been integral for years— are all vacating for greener pastures (the Russo have started their own mini-studio called AGBO Films, M&M are writing and overseeing everything).
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While the four core Marvel creators have said their time with Marvel is up, “for now”— they have dozens of movies to write, direct and supervise that should take up the next 5+ years of their lives, at least— some of them are leaving the door open for more MCU. Not necessarily more for them, but for the Captain America character played by Chris Evans that they sidelined at the conclusion of ‘Endgame’ by turning him into a 90-year-old man, effectively out of the picture for good.
On the recent Empire Spoiler podcast, which talked to the four filmmakers about every conceivable element in ‘Endgame’ you could possibly think of, the Russo brothers, they themselves, brought up “a story for another time,” regarding Steve Rodgers. In the sprawling, two-hour-plus conversation, directors were breaking down their time travel logic and rules, reminding the listener that the past doesn’t affect the future in their time travel laws and instead, it’s all about time branches (explained about as clearly as one can, in the movie by Tilda Swinton’s the Ancient One).
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“The time travel rules that we’re playing with are that you can create a time branch which is sort of an alternate timeline based on an interruption of a timeline. So, it’s very different from ‘Back To The Future’ which is linear,” Joe Russo said. “The tricky part is that you’re going against 30 years of film and television narrative convention.”
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Without quite explaining what he meant, Joe Russo then quickly used that explanation as a jumping off point for a narrative tease about the future. “But what’s interesting about it, and savvy people may come to ask is: how is old Cap is in this timeline at the end of the movie?” he posed with a suggestive lilt in his voice.
“That is an interesting story, isn’t it?” he asked rhetorically and mischievously. “Joe just brought up a question that we’re not going to answer,” Anthony Russo interjected with a laugh. “That could be a story for another time…”
Empire asked point blank, well, how is it that old Cap is in this movie given the linear rules of time travel. “Well, it’s something that will be explained perhaps at one point,” Joe Russo said with a smirk.
Anthony Russo attempted to elaborate a little bit. “In order for you to…. in order for that to be [old Cap appearing in the present timeline], according to the rules of the movie that we set out, there’s some missing story that obviously we’re not getting in the film,” he explained. “We don’t really want to delve into that missing story [right here]. The great thing about the MCU is that anything that doesn’t show up on screen, anything that doesn’t become text is fodder for future storytelling.”
Start your speculating engines? 45 minutes later in the podcast at the very end, Empire and the Russos circled back to the topic and reiterated what they had already said, intimating another Steve Rodgers story could come down the road.
“It’s a long story,” Anthony said. “It’s a story for another time,” Joe added.
So, what does that mean exactly? Are they hinting at telling the story of Time Bandit Cap, putting the stones back into their respective timelines to cut off that interrupted time branch so it no longer exists? Or, are they teasing something else, perhaps an alternative timeline Cap that could come back to the MCU one day? Maybe, they’re teasing an alternate universe story where our Cap goes back in time at the end of ‘Endgame’ and lives out his life as the nation’s protector, with knowledge of future events and heroes, allowing for a whole different timeline of events, before returning to our current reality? If we really want to speculate away, why not tell a “Logan”-esque Cap story with Old Man Cap, featuring a grizzled, older Evans doing “one last mission?”
There are tons of possibilities, for sure.
Whatever the case may be, it’s clear the Russos and Markus and McFeely have left the door open for another Captain America story to be told one day… if Marvel chooses to tell it. Chris Evans has certainly sort of left the tiniest crack in the door open in the past so it’s possible he and the four filmmakers may all be on the same page about what that possibility is, should Marvel and these creators choose to tell it. Speculate on, but if there comes a time when Marvel decides to call up Evans and ask him to don the suit again, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen for another good 10 years or so. Listen to the Empire podcast below and if you’re curious, the conversation around this topic starts around the 1 hour and 16-minute mark and then circles back again very briefly right at the end. “Avengers: Endgame” is still in theaters and may or may not become the highest grossing film of all time one day.
