Avengers: Infinity War’s Writer Knows Captain America Didn’t Get Enough Lines

Avengers: Infinity War’s Writer Knows Captain America Didn’t Get Enough Lines

It's an extremely exciting time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After a long year of waiting and theorizing, Avengers: Endgame will arrive in theaters in a matter of days. While the MCU helped satiate the rabid fanbase with the releases of Ant-Man and The Wasp and Captain Marvel, all eyes are on what The Russo Brothers will do with the final installment in Phase Three. Especially with the OG Avengers coming to the end of their contracts.

The original members of the team all miraculously survived Thanos' snap of death (aka The Decimation), allowing the original actors to take larger roles in Avengers: Endgame. This includes Chris Evans' Captain America, who had a surprisingly small amount of dialogue in the last film. Writer Stephen McFeely recently spoke to Cap's lack of lines in Infinity War, saying:

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. 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.

While fans may have been concerned, it looks like Stephen McFeely and co-writer Christopher Markus had a very specific plans for the Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Infinity War and Endgame. So while some heroes may have gotten the short end of the stick in the last film, the scales will even out when Endgame arrives next week.

Stephen McFeely's comments to io9 are sure to make Captain America's many fans very happy. Chris Evans' signature Marvel character is one of the largest presences in the entire MCU, alongside Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man. As such, some moviegoers were disappointed when Cap wasn't that big of a character in Infinity War. He never got to reconnect with Tony, and mostly appeared in action sequences in Edinburgh and Wakanda.

Related: 5 Ways Avengers: Endgame Can Wrap Up Captain America’s Story

But that should change with Endgame, especially once Tony is somehow rescued from being stranded in space with Nebula. Fans have been waiting to see Cap and Iron Man address their differences since Civil War arrived in theaters back in 2016. The duo will have to put their differences behind them if they have a chance at beating Thanos and reversing the snap.

You can actually watch all of Steve Rogers' scenes in Infinity War below. They only add up to a few minutes of screen time.

Poor Cap. There were just too many characters in Avengers: Infinity War to give him the spotlight. But now that half the cast has faded to dust before our eyes, we should expect way more of the First Avenger once Endgame arrives in theaters to unite the survivors.

It should be interesting to see how Captain America's story is wrapped up with Avengers: Endgame. Fans have been theorizing that he might end up dying during the blockbuster, especially as Chris Evans reaches the end of his contract with the studio. Cap has already sacrificed himself for the greater good once, and it would be a full circle moment to see him do it all again.

Answers will come when Avengers: Endgame finally arrives in theaters on April 26th. In the meantime, fill out CinemaBlend's Endgame death pool, and our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

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The 'Crowd Pleaser' Character Toy Story 4 Cut From Its Final Version

The 'Crowd Pleaser' Character Toy Story 4 Cut From Its Final Version

Pixar movies undergo a lot of changes over the course of their development. In the case of Toy Story 4, nearly the entire movie underwent significant story changes. While these sorts of changes are always made in an attempt to make the overall movie better, sometimes story beats and even entire characters that the movie makers love end up getting cut out as a result. Toy Story 4 was no exception.

Last month, when I had a chance to talk to Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley and producers Jonas Rivera and Mark Nielsen, I asked them if they had any particular elements of Toy Story 4 that didn't make the final version of the film that they missed. All three were in total agreement, that one character they all wish they could have kept was a dancing Santa Claus. According to Cooley...

Dancing Santa was pretty great, he was a character [who] didn’t make it. He was in the antique store and was kind of able, in a very unique way, he was kind of an expert on where to go. and the way things were at the [antiques] mall.

If you've seen the trailers for Toy Story 4 then you'll have seen the antiques store location. It's a major new setting for the film where a lot of the action takes place. We also meet a lot of new characters there, like Christina Hendricks' Gabby Gabby and Keanu Reeves' Duke Caboom.

However, one character that we unfortunately won't be meeting is a talking, dancing, Santa Claus character. The idea was clearly a favorite among many at Pixar. In addition to Josh Cooley and the producers, Toy Story production designer Bob Pauley and global technology supervisor Bill Reeves, who have been part of the franchise since the beginning, also mentioned to me that the Santa was a favorite lost character of theirs as well.

Josh Cooley explained what the scene was originally going to look like...

He’s kinda like an informant in a seedy alley. [Bo and Woody] were talking about, ‘Man, it’s dark in this antiques store. It’s pretty intense, everybody seems so desperate.’ And they’d hear, ‘Tis the season for desperation’ and they’d turn around and there’s one of these Santas there. He’s got a little candle that’s up lighting on him. And Woody’s like, ‘Look Santa, we’d need some help’ and all of the sudden he’d start dancing. Jingle Bell Rock is playing. ‘Ah, you set off my motion detector.’ And then he’d go back into, ‘Anyway, like I was saying...’ and there’s still Jungle Bell Rock playing [in the background]. It was a crowd pleaser for sure.

It's clear that the reason everybody liked the Santa was because the jokes were funny, but ultimately, Pixar always wants to focus on the story that is being told, and if a gag gets in the way of that, the gag has to go, no matter how funny it is. Bob Pauly explained to me that this was the problem with the dancing Santa:

It got cut, which is the right thing, because that was a moment when they had it where it was kind of an emotional moment in the movie, where it's about Bo and Woody. Trust [me], it needed to go, it didn't support that.

The good news is that it sounds like enough of the dancing Santa survives that we'll get to see him as part of the deleted scenes on the eventual Toy Story 4 Blu-ray. Until then, we can see the final version of Toy Story 4 on June 21. Tickets for the summer sequel are on sale as we speak, so make sure that you grab your seats to opening weekend, so you'll see the latest adventure with Buzz, Woody and the gang.

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Jimmy Fallon Made Mark Ruffalo Take An Avengers: Endgame Lie Detector Test

Jimmy Fallon Made Mark Ruffalo Take An Avengers: Endgame Lie Detector Test

While nobody likes being spoiled, that doesn't stop fans from getting absolutely obsessive when it comes to wondering what is going to happen in their favorite movie franchises. Avengers: Endgame is set to be the biggest Marvel movie yet and Mark Ruffalo is known to be less than perfect at keeping secrets. However, last night Jimmy Fallon took no chances when he decided to hook the Incredible Hulk himself up to a lie detector. The results were... interesting. Check it out in the clip below.

It seems that every time that Mark Ruffalo is on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the host is ready to grill him for answers one way or another. This time Fallon decided he wanted to have incontrovertible evidence of accuracy. For what it's worth, Fallon does appear to have a legitimate lie detector device on his desk. It certainly looks like the real deal.

Fallon starts by asking if the Hulk is, in fact, a Skrull, a pertinent question coming on the heels of the release of Captain Marvel, which introduced the shape shifting aliens to the MCU. Mark Ruffalo says he can't answer, though the machine claims that he could. Ruffalo also refuses to answer questions about the relationship status of Bruce Banner and Black Widow. He also seemingly reveals that there are secrets in the original trailer that nobody has discovered, by claiming that there are not.

As entertaining as all this is, it was obviously played for comedy and so we can't exactly take any of it to mean anything. It appears the machine was being manipulated for comedic purposes, but even if it wasn't, many of Fallon's questions were asked in such a way that the machine wouldn't read things properly anyway. And does anybody believe Jimmy Fallon actually knows how to hook somebody up to a lie detector?

Mark Ruffalo has been in something of the Marvel doghouse of late, as the guy has a tendency to spill things about the movies, however accidentally. He previously left his phone on and streamed portions of Thor: Ragnarok that he wasn't supposed to. He also actually gave away the emotional ending of Avengers: Infinity War, though luckily his comments only got wide spread play after the fact.

Considering his previous gaffs in the area of spoilers, Mark Ruffalo is probably one of the safer people to put out in public leading into Avengers: Endgame. He's paying that much more attention to every word that he's saying.

All of this took play last night, prior to the release of this morning's brand new trailer. It, like everything else we've seen in the promotions department, tells us remarkably little about what's actually going to happen in Endgame. It also tells us remarkably little about what Mark Ruffalo himself is even going to be doing in the movie.

On the plus side, we have barely more than a month before we'll get all our answers. Avengers: Endgame will be here April 26.

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Triple Frontier Has A Donkey Scene That Was Hilarious To Film

Triple Frontier Has A Donkey Scene That Was Hilarious To Film

In the new Netflix action thriller Triple Frontier, there’s a serious montage of scenes where, as part of said montage, actors Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund are seen shepherding a couple of donkeys across a river in the South American jungle. So leave it to their animal co-stars to make things interesting when it came time to actually shoot those scenes, as the actors recently spoke with CinemaBlend about a particularly hilarious day on set involving donkeys, water, and bathroom humor. Here’s how the actors described the scenario, when asked what day on set made them most feel like an action hero:

Hunnam: Probably the day we had to swim with the donkeys, right?

[Hunnam and Hedlund break into laughter]

Hunnam: Garrett and I picked the short straw. Or, I guess, in his usual Machiavellian way, J.C. [Chandor] went and asked all of us, independently, if we would be prepared to swim across the length of a swimming pool with a pack of mules. And everybody else said no, apart from, I guess, Garrett and I.

Hedlund: It was more of a fecal matter issue for some of the cast.

While the finished product is a sobering experience, when the heroes at the center of Triple Frontier are at a particularly difficult time in their heist, the story above is anything but. And watching Hunnam and Hedlund laughing it up during the telling of said story only makes the tale that much more interesting.

This is only compounded by the fact that, of course, this story involving animal actors contains a moment where the donkeys involved had to relieve themselves. It's a classic trope in humor that has legs, and for very good reason. At this point, the story gets even more interesting as this old saw gets a new spin through some colorful descriptions from Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund. The Triple Frontier co-stars elaborated on this story with the following:

Hunnam: Well it was when we got into the pool, and they started defecating all over the place.

Hedlund: The fun thing is, my donkey had to go first, and when a donkey gets in the water, they tend to try and get to the other side…

Hunnam: That’s going to be the name of your biography, ‘My Donkey Had To Go First.’

Hedlund: ...so if a donkey gets in the water, they tend to try and get to the other side as quick as they can. So trying to see Charlie keep up with his donkey, following my donkey, was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

It’s certainly not the easiest thing in the world to work with an animal actor on a set such as the one for Triple Frontier. Considering they’re one of the two types of performers that have historically been on the list of collaborators not to work with, you can kind of see why. Just imagining two actors such as Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund, trying to get through the day of shooting with a donkey that really had to go is enough to break even the most stoic spectator into a fit of laughter.

Of course, describing their humorous reactions to filming this particular stretch of Triple Frontier is one thing. But if you want to watch Hunnam and Hedlund really delight in the reveal of this story, you can see it all for yourself below.

Don't let that story about the donkeys fool you, as the behind the scenes story you've just experienced doesn't sour the Triple Frontier experience at all. If anything, it proves that all involved, particularly Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund in this specific instance, are total professionals. It takes an extremely focused actor to portray a dramatic scene of crime and consequences, while wading through donkey dung; and this cast passes that test with flying colors.

Triple Frontier is in theaters now, with its Netflix streaming debut set for March 13th.

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Dumbo Is Expected To Have A Big Worldwide Opening Too

Dumbo Is Expected To Have A Big Worldwide Opening Too

Disney has never had trouble making money with the remakes of animated classics. It's the main reason that we're getting three of them this year. However, the level of success can still be quite variable. Beauty and the Beast make a billion dollars while Cinderella made only half a billion. Dumbo may turn out to see numbers on the lower end of that spectrum, but it's still looking like it will have a pretty impressive global opening, as the film is currently tracking to bring in something around $140 million for it's opening weekend.

Dumbo is opening in nearly every territory where it is opening at all by this Friday. That means that this weekend is going to be key to the overall success of the film. It's opening in the U.S. and China, the two biggest box office markets in the world, which means it's pretty much all downhill from here.

The official range for Dumbo's opening weekend, according to Deadline is between $137-$155 million. The U.S. is looking to make up a bit less than half that business as the domestic number currently projected is around $60 million at the low end. It doesn't have much competition for the box office title. No other major wide releases are hitting screens on Friday. Jordan Peele's Us will probably have a solid second weekend, but that movie really isn't competing with Dumbo for audience share.

For comparison, 2015's Cinderella saw a domestic opening weekend of $67 million and ended up grossing $543 million globally. If Dumbo finds itself on the low end of projections, it could end up coming in beneath that number. Still, when your competition is a series of films that have largely made a half billion dollars or more, you can come up short by comparison and still be a massive hit in absolute numbers.

Dumbo is the earliest of the Disney animated films to be given the remake treatment, which is something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's had the longest time to become popular to multiple generations. At the same time, it may not resonate with fans in quite the same way as a more modern film simply because of its age.

Of course, the last time Tim Burton directed a Disney remake it was a little film called Alice in Wonderland that made a billion dollars, so who knows? If lightning strikes twice we could see Dumbo become an absolutely massive hit.

Regardless of Dumbo's numbers, it is sure to be a big year for Disney remakes. In just two months we'll see the live-action version of Aladdin, and two months after that we'll get the new version of The Lion King. Those two films are almost certainly destined to be box office successes. The latter film could find itself competing for the box office crown of the year if it does as well as the animated original.

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Sounds Like Marvel Studios Is Really Focusing On Diversity In Phase Four

Sounds Like Marvel Studios Is Really Focusing On Diversity In Phase Four

A lot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s fate in Phase 4 is unknown, past the fact that it will kick things off with Spider-Man: Far From Home. But there’s definitely some idea of what properties will make an appearance in the next stage of the evolution for the MCU, as confirmed by Avengers: Endgame producer Trinh Tran. While she was obviously vague about the specifics, the subject of diversity is the big focus for the next batch of films. In particular, Tran dropped the following hints:

All I can say is we have a ton of characters we haven’t explored, and I’d love to do them all. Especially given that with Captain Marvel’s success and the diversity that she brings with the female representation, and with Black Panther and that diversity, it would be great to get more of that out there. Because we have a lot of diverse characters in Marvel.

With both Captain Marvel and Black Panther raking in upwards of $1 billion in their theatrical releases, Marvel Studios has the track record to prove that audiences are definitely looking for better, more diverse representation at the multiplex. But on top of that marketable truth, the studio also has the properties to back up the current plans that Trinh Tran is hinting towards in Phase 4.

Obviously, sequels that follow both Carol Danvers and King T’Challa are going to be hot topics of discussion throughout the offices of Marvel Studios. That’s just for starters though, as the studio has also made announcements on other titles and casting that make for a more diverse MCU. One such title on the plate of the Marvel Studios creative team is the feature film adaptation of Shang-Chi, with Short Term 12 director Daniel Cretton directing, and the need for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first Asian-American lead to be cast.

Additionally, the Scarlet Johansson-led Black Widow solo film is gathering steam pretty fast, with a cast that seems to be constantly growing in recent weeks. That makes this particular project feel like more of a pressing matter for the near future, as all that needs to happen is for the project’s cast to fill out and a start date to be set. And that last concern seems to already be solved, as David Harbour has clued the world into a possible June start date.

Then there’s The Eternals, which is set to have Chloe Zhao directing a cast that will include not only Angelina Jolie and Kumail Nanjiani in its lineup, but also has a role open for an openly gay actor on this new Marvel cinematic super team. While most of these other projects weren’t mentioned by producer Trinh Tran during her talk with Screen Rant, they aren’t exactly surprises as they’ve been going concerns that for some time.

It shouldn’t be too long before Marvel Studios announces their official plans for Phase 4 and possibly beyond if the claim of a five year plan already drawn up is accurate. As it stands, we do know that Avengers: Endgame marks the beginning of the end, which will lead to a brand new beginning, on April 26.

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The Advice Chris Hemsworth Got About Moviemaking From Tom Cruise

The Advice Chris Hemsworth Got About Moviemaking From Tom Cruise

Chris Hemsworth has been in the acting business long enough that he’s worked with plenty of heavy hitters as well as in big franchises like the MCU and Star Trek. However, he also has had the chance to talk to a-lister Tom Cruise about moviemaking in general and he took the opportunity to ask him about what drove him in the business. Per Hemsworth:

I asked Tom Cruise years ago what drove him to make certain decisions on films. He said, ‘I just want people to see my movies. I don’t want to put that much blood, sweat and tears into it, and have it come and go.

"Whatever it takes," right? Tom Cruise is known for a lot of things, but one of them is the work ethic he puts into his own movies, which involves him performing stuntwork other actors may not dare to. He also helps with decision-making behind the camera, and stories about his alleged work ethic came up when The Mummy was a bit of a disaster a couple of years ago.

According to what Chris Hemsworth revealed to Variety, Tom Cruise’s work ethic really fascinated him, leading to a point where Cruise gave the younger actor advice about moviemaking and the work that is put in.

Chris Hemsworth is also team big screen, telling the outlet in the same interview that he believes in the medium and hopes people will still continue moviegoing in droves. He said:

I just love the theatrical experience. I think there’s nothing quite like it, and the industry will change in a big way if we don’t get people to the cinema.

There’s been a pretty big shift in the industry as a lot of key content players have headed to Netflix or elsewhere streaming, just as there have been big advocates for theatrical moviegoing to remain a mainstay. Some have been vocal about disliking the streaming model, but that's not really what's mentioned here.

So far, studies have shown that people who consume media streaming often tend to go to the theater in higher numbers, but what Chris Hemsworth seems to be saying boils more down to wanting to make sure the movies he (and Tom Cruise) makes are good enough that they engage the theatrical audience and keep people excited about going to the movies. It's less of an us and them mentality and more of a what can be done to improve the project I'm on sort of thing.

Still, moviegoing and the movie experience is certain topical this days, with movies searching worldwide for larger audiences and theaters finding creative ways to keep fans coming in droves.

No one who works insanely hard on a movie and wants it to come and go with bad reviews, or possibly worse, indifference at the box office. And while Tom Cruise has not been immune to bad reviews in his career, he does what he can to make sure the final project is the best it could be. That's advice that any actor could latch onto.

You can next catch Chris Hemsworth in Men In Black: International, out June 14. Tom Cruise's next big gig will be in Top Gun: Maverick, out in 2020.

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