Have We Already Seen Footage From Avengers 4?

Beware, the following article contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War and speculation regarding Avengers 4

As Infinity War takes the first steps towards complete and utter box office dominance, you would be forgiven for forgetting that the as-of-yet untitled Avengers 4 is right around the bend in 2019.

Whilst we have Ant-Man and the Wasp and the much anticipated Captain Marvel to come in-between the two juggernaut Avengers films, I’m beginning to wonder whether Marvel have sneakily already shown us footage from Avengers 4.

There was one shot throughout the marketing stage for Infinity War that was pretty much everywhere. It was the go-home sell for the movie and is the image that has been used most frequently for articles, blogs, interviews etc. outside of the posters themselves. Yet it was never in the actual film itself…

It’s not unusual for trailers to use footage that isn’t in the finished product, Rogue One for example had a large amount of footage that wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the final product. But most of that was a result of re-shoots, something that Infinity War hasn’t particularly suffered from. Besides that, there is one glaring entry in the above image that calls to question the reliability of what we’re seeing, and that’s the inclusion of The Hulk.

If you’ve seen Infinity War (And if you haven’t why the hell are you reading this article) then you’ll know that the Hulk only makes one appearance at the beginning of the film, and after being crushed by Thanos he suffers from some performance issues throughout the rest of the film.

It’s entirely possible that Marvel crafted this image for the sake of marketing and to give the trailers that one grand scene of the Avengers charging into battle together. But in that situation why include the Hulk? In other footage of the Wakandan Defence Force the trailers very openly acknowledge the HulkBuster armour, and quite clearly don’t include Hulk for the sake of it. So why include him here when it would have been simpler just to leave him out entirely?

My theory is that Marvel actually used footage from Avengers 4. Now, stay with me. It’s been long rumoured that Avengers 4 will be a time-travel movie, whereby the remaining cast go back in time to try and change the outcome of Thanos’ victory in Infinity War. So who’s to say that it doesn’t all lead to a similar version of the battle we saw at the conclusion of Infinity War? Where the Avengers take on Thanos at Wakanda, only this time things are different. Bruce Banner and Hulk could have by now worked out their differences, and the inclusion of the Hulk rather than the HulkBuster armour piloted by Bruce would no doubt be a much greater asset to the good guys. Furthermore, it explains why the entire army is pictured in the forest, a place where only the Avengers go during their fight with the Black Guard and Thanos. Perhaps this time they’re aware of when and where Thanos will appear and they all tackle the Titan together?

It also lends some weight to the speculation that Pepper Potts was seemingly pregnant in her running suit when photos were taken of the Infinity War set. If she was then it would seemingly confirm that we are going to be revisiting Infinity War scenes, but with major differences come Avengers 4.

This is all speculation though and it causes as many issues as it answers. But it’s fun to speculate and the revisiting of the Wakandan battle scene with a different outcome could be a lot of fun. Heck, The Edge of Tomorrow showed that repeating the same battle can be done really well.

What do you think? Is the inclusion of Hulk just a marketing ploy, or does it hint towards something else to come in the future.