There’s a Stan Lee cameo in Avengers: Infinity War. And in other news, Thanos is still plotting to wipe out half of the universe.
In all seriousness, though, news of an appearance from Lee – however small – is music to our ears, particularly after the Marvel Comics legend was admitted to hospital earlier in the year following a battle with pneumonia. And that’s before we factor in those damning allegations of elder abuse and manipulation.
Still no update on that front just yet, but while appearing on BBC Radio Scotland (h/t ComicBook.com), Infinity War co-director Joe Russo touched on Stan Lee’s super-secret cameo, and why the Powers That Be tend to arrange for multiple cameos to be filmed all at once – thereby explaining why Lee’s appearances in both Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers 4 are already in the can.
He’s the godfather of a lot of these stories, him and Jack Kirby. And Jim Starlin, actually, in particular for the character Thanos, the writer who created Thanos. So, Stan, typically we try to get him out — he doesn’t love to fly — so we try to get him out for his cameos around the same time. So if we have other movies shooting on the same lot that we’re on, for instance, Ant-Man and the Wasp or Avengers 4, we group his cameos together and then move him from one set to the next and get him through his cameos in one day.
The filmmaker continued to heap praise on Stan Lee, stating that his mere presence on set was enough to lift everyone’s moods, even when the going got tough and the daunting task of capturing Infinity War and Avengers 4 back-to-back began to take its toil.
He’s great. He’s a blast to have on set and everybody loves it. And he seems to engender a really warm response from the audience when he comes on the screen.
Details of Stan Lee’s actual cameo in Avengers: Infinity War are being kept under lock and key, and even if you’ve caught wind of some intel, chances are it’s fake. Perhaps Avengers 3 will be the movie to confirm Lee’s omnipresent character as a Watcher? We’ll find out very soon.