“We consume too much content,” Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo said recently, addressing the amount of footage they filmed for the movie. “So at our disposal are lots of different shots that aren’t in the movie that we can manipulate through CG to tell a story that we want to tell specifically for the purpose of the trailer and not for the film.”
We share that quote to remind Marvel fans that the Russos manipulate the Avengers 4 footage shown in trailers and TV spots to keep things secret until the premiere. To that end, Anthony and Joe just told us that one of the most epic Endgame scenes we saw this week isn’t real. That’s hardly a surprise coming from the folks who claimed that the title of Avengers 4 isn’t even mentioned in Infinity War.
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But the Russos also revealed that one of the key scenes they revealed this week is fake:
The Tony Stark/Captain America scene from the Special Look trailer isn’t what it seems. Some interpreted it as the Tony/Steve scene we’ve been waiting for ever since the tragic finale of Captain America: Civil War. The two haven’t spoken to each other for some two years, although Stark still keeps the flip phone Rogers mailed to him close by, as we saw in Infinity War. I, however, am convinced this scene has nothing to do with the first Tony/Cap scene the audience is dying to see: The reunion between these two heroes. Here’s what I said about it while dissecting the Special Look trailer a few days ago:
This leads to what appears to be the most anticipated scene of the Infinity War-Endgame movies, the moment when Tony and Steve reunite. But I bet this actually isn’t that moment. Look at how grey Tony’s hair is. The more likely scenario is that old Stark has jumped back in time to the New York battle where he meets the 2012 Captain America. That’s because of the strange exchange between the two. Stark asks Rogers ‘You trust me?’ and Cap answers that he does. Did Tony just tell him he arrived from the future to the Battle of New York? Because last time we checked, it was Stark who didn’t trust Captain America after discovering in Civil War that Rogers knew Bucky had killed his parents.
With all that in mind, let’s see what the Russo brothers had to say about that particular scene while talking to Fox about the 10 minutes of Endgame footage that they’ve shown to the press.
“My favorite moment in the new trailer is Tony saying ‘Do you trust me?’ and Cap goes ‘I do,’” Fox’s Kevin McCarthy told the Russos during the interview. “Like, to me, that could have been a moment where there could have been a joke or whatever, ‘cause they have that funny banter back and forth. But it was a beautiful moment because of the stakes of what’s happening. Just because that moment is out there and in the trailers, directing that scene, having those two, knowing what happened in Infinity War, knowing what happened with Thanos’s snap, what was it like to be behind the camera in that moment?”
“Well, it’s an amazing moment, but we can’t go into too much detail,” Anthony started answering the question before Joe took over to say “that scene isn’t in the movie.” Even Anthony seemed a little perplexed.
“So you know that we tell people that we manipulate trailers in order to obfuscate what happens in these films?” Joe continued. “That actually is not in the movie.”
He then asked, rhetorically: “Am I joking?” We have no idea, Joe. We have no idea.
“The relationship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers is a relationship that we’ve been following for a long time,” Anthony tried to explain again before Joe intervened one more time, likely to obfuscate things some more. “That is a very special story arc,” Anthony said just as Joe started waving his hand. Yes, these two are pros at misdirection.
“Maybe it is in the film,” Joe conceded before the interview concluded.
So, is that Tony/Cap scene in the film? I think not. McCarthy’s take is probably wrong too. The two iconic Avengers will not reunite in that scene. I’d speculate that Marvel has camouflaged Rogers’ Captain America suit in the trailer to make it look more modern than it actually is. Why? To prevent us from realizing that Tony is talking to 2012 Cap, which would be a confirmation of time travel in Endgame. Remember, it’s all about obfuscation with these Avengers 4 trailers.
