One of the biggest blockbusters of all time is scheduled to land in less than a year, and we truly couldn't be more excited. The entire Marvel Cinematic Universe to this point has been building towards the showdown with Thanos in The Avengers: Infinity War, and it's practically painful that we need to wait nearly 10 more months to finally see it. With any luck, it won't be too long before the first trailer debuts online... but today we got a very special treat in the form of a first look at Disney's D23 Expo. And it left us literally shaking.
This morning's main event down in Anaheim, California was Disney's big live-action panel - celebrating the upcoming titles from Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and more - and part of that experience was a debut peek at The Avengers: Infinity War. And while there are still two Marvel Studios movies to go before the huge film gets here, it legitimately can't get here soon enough, as the film seriously looks like it could be one of the most epic blockbusters ever created.
SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Homecoming. If you have not yet seen the movie, and don't wish to read about any specific details, please bookmark this page and return after your screening!
Following a quick look back at the Marvel movies of the past, the footage began with the Guardians of the Galaxy flying out in space, with Mantis (Pom Klementeiff) telling the group that they are arriving at their destination. Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) warns everyone to put on their game faces thanks to the danger they may face -- but as they slow down they realize that they're not seeing what they expect to see. Instead, the Milano arrives to space filled with destruction -- and the group is surprised when a body hits their windshield. Rocket screams, "Wipers, wipers!' but this is no ordinary body: it's none other than the God of Thunder, Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
Thor, who is still unconscious, is brought into the ship and put down on a table, and Mantis uses her abilities to wake the Asgardian up. As she does, he rockets up from the table, and has a serious look of concern across his face, asking "Who the hell are you guys?" As they continue to fly through space, Thor joins Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) in one of the ship's portholes, and as they look out, the former mutters, "Something is very wrong."
From there, the footage gave us a closer look at some of the other major things happening in the Marvel Universe -- primarily wrapped around the image of a giant ship seemingly crashing towards Earth. We hear a voice (possibly Mantis) explain that "Death follows him like a shadow." We see Loki (Tom Hiddleston) presenting the Tesseract like a prize finally won; the hair on the arm of Peter Parker (Tom Holland) standing on end as his spider-sense tingles while riding the bus; and the voice of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) explain that the one advantage they have is that "he's coming to us." As the aforementioned ship continues to fall, we hear some voice-over from Thanos (Josh Brolin), who notes "Fun really isn't something one considers while balancing the universe, but this does put a smile on my face."
As we see a few more clips, including Gamora (Zoe Saldana) in what appears to be the destroyed museum of The Collector, and Star-Lord letting out a seriously-concerned, "Oh man," we see a black cloud form with blue electricity around it. It's from this shadow that the Mad Titan exits. Thanos has arrived on Earth.
Getting seriously dramatic and thrilling, the footage got into some of the action, and it looks dark and intense -- from Star-Lord jumping around on what looks like platforms that Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is generating, to Spider-Man not wearing his normal costume, but instead the specially designed armor featured at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming. As Thanos says, "I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right. But you'll fail all the same," we then see Captain America (Chris Evans) for the first time, sporting a heavy beard. A dejected, defeated, de-masked Peter Parker sits on the battlefield with Iron Man saying, "Tony, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, " and in a one-on-one battles with Thanos we watch Thor's head get basically palmed by the Mad Titan and twisted, and Iron Man get punched crazy hard.
The big showstopper arrived at the end of the footage, however, as we finally got to see the full power of Thanos. While people have joked about him just being a purple alien who sits on a throne, the last shot fully demonstrated his amazing power, as he literally pulls a planet/moon out of the sky and creates a giant wave of meteors raining towards Earth. "Run from it," Thanos says, "But destiny still arrives."
It may sound like hyperbole, but watching the first ever footage from The Avengers: Infinity War truly left my hands trembling and my mouth agape. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo obviously had a huge task handed to them with the blockbuster -- asked to create a Marvel movie bigger than anything that preceded it -- and it looks like that's exactly what has been done. Obviously there's still a lot more that we're looking forward to, as there are a ton of characters who are in the movie but didn't appear in the footage -- but the hype most definitely feels very, very real.
Unless Marvel Studios plans on pulling off some kind of huge surprise move at San Diego Comic-Con next week, it will probably still be a little while before the first footage from The Avengers: Infinity War arrives online (partially because the movie also only just recently wrapped production). That being said, you can be sure that we will be intimately following every little morsel that is provided with us, so stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest updates on the movie, and get ready for The Avengers: Infinity War to drop in theaters on May 4, 2018.
