Why Avengers: Infinity War Still Doesn't Plan To Include Any Marvel TV Heroes

In just two years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will kick off their biggest event yet with the Avengers: Infinity War movies.  The two-part superhero epic is serving as a culmination to everything that’s happened in that universe since 2008, and after years of being teased, Thanos will finally jump into action. Because of how big a threat the Mad Titan is, the movie will feature the largest cast of MCU heroes yet, with the number of available folks to include being around 75. Unfortunately for fans of Marvels small screen offerings, you still shouldn’t expect any TV heroes to show up.

During an interview with Italian website BadTaste, Avengers: Infinity War directors Joe and Anthony Russo explained how they’re job is already tough enough working with characters only active in the movies. Here’s the rough translation of Joe Russo's comment:

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that Avengers: Infinity War won’t include any TV characters. Despite a rumor to the contrary early last year, there are various complications to bring heroes like Daredevil and Jessica Jones into the gigantic conflict with Thanos. However, even if that weren’t the case, the Russos sound like have their hands full with just the movie heroes. Fortunately, fans don’t need to worry about Avengers: Infinity War looking sparse. From most (if not all) of the Avengers to at least one Guardian of the Galaxy to some of the new heroes being introduced in Phase Three, there will be plenty of players involved.

Aside from dealing with a ridiculously high number of movie characters, an additional complication to including TV heroes in Avengers: Infinity War is that Marvel’s movie and TV divisions are run separately. Kevin Feige recently gained control of the former not too long ago, while Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter still oversees the latter. So even though both the movies and TV shows exist in the same universe, it’s difficult to coordinate the two sides. Events from the movies are obviously acknowledged on the small screen, and occasionally a movie character has popped up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, but we have yet to see what happens in these TV shows be directly acknowledged in one of the movies. Even the Inhumans, who are key players on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., recently had their movie pulled off the schedule, though it hasn’t been scrapped.

Avengers: Infinity War begins shooting at the end of the year, so unless something changes in the coming months, it’s unlikely that the more notable TV heroes will make the jump to the big screen, at least in the first movie. Part 1 will be released on May 4, 2018, and Part 2 will follow on May 3, 2019.