Welcome back to the Spotlight series, where we will take an in depth look at either an upcoming film, video game or novel. Detailing everything there is to know about the upcoming release and our own personal thoughts. Our second entry in the series is going to look at upcoming Marvel movie Avengers: Infinity War.

Back in 2008 cinema goers witnessed the beginning of something that would transcend all film media that had come before it. The beginning of the “Marvel Cinema Universe” as Studio chief Kevin Feige (Later referred to as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU) phrased it. Iron Man, directed by Jon Favreau, saw the world introduced to Earth-199999 an on-screen continuity that would set out to combine Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in a series of feature films across a number of years. With the aim being to bring them all together in a future crossover event.

From there the rest is history, at some point prior to the release of The Avengers Marvel put together a 3-Phase plan that would culminate in the largest crossover story in cinematic history. We’re now 10 years on from the first Iron Man film and we’re at long last about to witness the first installment of that story.

Avengers: Infinity War marks the beginning of the end for Phase 3 in the MCU, and regardless of the history making series that has come before it, and shall undoubtedly carry on afterwards, the film itself is worthy of applause.

Counts have varied, but as of right now it appears as though the film together over 70 characters from across the franchise. Rather than relying on series stalwarts such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America this film will up the stakes like no film has done before, placing emphasis on the need for every hero available to be present in order to combat the villain of the piece, Thanos. The pressure that this feat will have placed not only on the directors, but also the writers and crew involved with the movie’s production would be astronomical. These aren’t just throw away characters or cameos, but instead fully fleshed out key pieces of an ensemble, who the audience will be expecting to see in balanced roles throughout the movie. Of course some will take more a center stage over others, and the roles may then be reversed when the final movie of Marvel’s initial 3 phases comes about, Avengers 4; but from the trailers alone we have already seen the likes of Iron Man, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Vision and Thor being thrust into the spotlight. Combine this with the need for the Russo Brothers to tell an effective “origin story” for Thanos and the feature film starts to look like someone having to balance 70 plates at once, rather than the usual 1 to 10.

The world premier for Infinity War will take place in Los Angeles on April 23rd 2018, with the theatrical release of the film then taking place sporadically over the next few days, with the final release date being the 11th May 2018 when the film will be released in China. You can find the release date for your country here.

In an uncommon move for a movie of this magnitude, Marvel won’t be running any press junkets prior to the movie’s premier on the 23rd. In fact the directors have gone as far as to post a Tweet which specifically stated that #ThanosDemandsYourSilence and begged for audiences not to spoil the film once they had seen it, stating that the film’s true plot had not yet been revealed.

#ThanosDemandsYourSilence https://t.co/dvyc26ju04—
Russo Brothers (@Russo_Brothers) April 03, 2018

Lastly, the Russo Brothers and Kevin Feige have been bridging questions about the still untitled Avengers 4, revealing that the title has been kept under wraps because it will spoil the events of Infinity War and that the title once revealed should scare fans of the franchise.

https://twitter.com/Russo_Brothers/status/979857230890647552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashfilm.com%2Favengers-4-title%2F&tfw_creator=slashfilm&tfw_site=slashfilm

Let us know Marvel fans, how excited are you for the release of Infinity War? And don’t try and pretend like you’re not.