'Avengers: Infinity War' Shooting Schedule Revealed; What Does This Mean For Future Marvel Crossovers?

Although their movie series won't wrap up until sometime in 2019, the Avengers are assembling once again in 2016 to film both parts of “Avengers: Infinity War.” It was revealed in October that the next adventure for Earth’s mightiest heroes would be split into two films.

Speaking with Esquire, Chris Evans revealed that he’ll spend most of 2016 suited up as Captain America while he and the rest of the cast film the next chapter in the “Avengers” saga.

“We start ['Captain America: Civil War'] in a couple weeks, and then that shoots until August or something like that,” the 33-year-old actor said. “And then we start the 'Infinity War,' I think, some time in the third quarter. Fall or winter of 2016. That's going to be like nine months to shoot both movies back to back."

With “Avengers: Age of Ultron” dropping this week, many of the cast probably thought they would have until at least 2017 before they had to don their superhero suits once again. But due to Marvel Studios’ strict filming schedule, it looks like Joe and Anthony Russo want to finish off all their directing duties in one big chunk. While this doesn’t mean much for Evans, who will have his third standalone movie released by May 2016, characters like Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Spider-Man probably will be filming the next “Avengers” before their individual movies, assuming they're all in it of course.

While this doesn’t mean much for the collection of actors that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it does seem odd that fans may be digesting a teaser trailer for “Thor: Ragnarok,” which is scheduled for a November 2017 release, while “Avengers: Infinity War” sits on a shelf waiting for its 2018 moment in the sun.

Meanwhile, this could mean that the next time Chris Pratt reprises his role as Starlord from “Guardians of the Galaxy” won’t be to film the sequel, which is scheduled to drop in May 2017. As fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe know, “Infinity War” will see Thanos (Josh Brolin), the villain teased at the end of the first “Avengers” who made a minor appearance in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” as the principal villain.

In the comics, the character is most popular for a plotline in which he gets control of the Infinity Gauntlet and the stones that power it. To make a long story short, pretty much every cosmic entity that’s been encountered in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far (the tesseract, the aether and the orb) is one of these power stones. With the villain so closely tied to the Guardians, many were holding onto hope that the two teams would unite in “Infinity War.” Even Drax (Dave Bautista) publicly shared his hopes on the matter with Metro.

Unfortunately, director James Gunn hasn’t offered much hope of a crossover in the past. After some of his comments were misunderstood by the media in December, Gunn took to Facebook to clear the air and dispel rumors either for or against a teamup.

“When I'm asked about the Guardians and their future, and whether they'll meet up with the Avengers, I really don't have all that much to say, because some of it isn't decided yet, and I don't want to give away what is decided,” he wrote. “So I speak in these general terms. They aren't things that I'm just saying on the spot, and they aren't things that have been decided on by me alone. But they are sometimes incredibly general, and that can lead to those words being taken in a lot of different ways.”

It’s too early to tell what Evans’ news of the “Infinity War” shooting schedule means for any future MCU crossovers, but it looks like the two-part saga will be putting all hands on deck sooner rather than later to battle Thanos.