Last year’s Avengers: Infinity War was charged with juggling an overwhelming array of characters, which meant that even some of the MCU’s biggest stars were essentially pushed into supporting roles. Take Captain America, who was given a total of just 25 lines in the whole two-and-a-half-hour movie. Sure, he gets a few memorable moments here and there, but you could’ve written him out of the film entirely and the plot would’ve been more or less the same.
In an interview with io9, Infinity War co-writer Stephen McFeely admitted that the First Avenger wasn’t given a whole lot to say or do in his last outing, but argued that he’ll play a much bigger role in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame.
“When I was talking about [Infinity War], I very often said that sometimes we gave ourselves permission to tell more story for a character in Endgame than in Infinity War,” McFeely said. “Cap’s a great example. People counted Cap’s lines [in Infinity War] and he had like 20.
“So Cap steps forward, as you can probably tell, pretty dramatically in Endgame. And that’s because we knew some people had more interesting stories after [the Snap] than before it. Cap and Natasha are good examples of that. So I wouldn’t say we shortchange anybody [in Endgame], but part of the reason there are only [13] people on that poster was to go deeper with fewer.”
The poster that McFeely is referring to here is the one released last month to coincide with the second trailer. Sure enough, the artwork has Chris Evans’ character stood front row and center. Meanwhile, Cap has been similarly prominent in Endgame’s promotional footage, which has given more lines to Steve Rogers than any other character.
All in all, the Avengers: Infinity War sequel is looking to be a hugely important chapter in Steve’s journey. Evans himself recently hinted that next week’s release will see a completion of his arc, and it’s widely predicting that the film will be his final outing in the MCU. Whether or not that means a tragic fate for the character remains to be seen, but when even Evans is cracking dead Captain America jokes, perhaps there’s reason to be nervous.
In any case, if this really is to be Steve’s last hurrah, then it sounds like he’ll be going out with a bang when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters on April 26th.