Thanos
Thanos (Josh Brolin) will appear in “Avengers: Infinity War” to battle the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the two-part movie tie-in will be retitled. Marvel Studios

With “Captain America: Civil War” hitting theaters this weekend, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is experiencing its biggest crossover event until the climactic two-part “Avengers: Infinity War” films. However, new details about those two installments could change the way fans look at the ending of Marvel’s Phase 3 lineup.

In October, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced the lineup of movies that would follow “Ant-Man” through 2020. Although that lineup has since changed with the inclusion of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” the “Infinity War” two-parter has remained static. However, that doesn’t mean that fans should expect a single story to be told over the course of two movies separated by time.

Speaking to Uproxx, “Civil War” and “Infinity War” directors Joe and Anthony Russo revealed that the upcoming “Avengers” installments shouldn’t be looked at as a two-parter.

“The movies are two very different movies,” Joe said.

“It is misleading,” Anthony added. “The intention is we will change it, we just haven’t come up with the titles yet. But, yes, we will change it. And, yes, that is a scoop: we will retitle them.”

There you have it, MCU fans, the climactic cap off to Phase 3 hasn’t even had its big title revealed yet. Admittedly this isn’t altogether surprising as Marvel previously kept its “Spider-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” titles a secret until it landed on a proper name. This seems to be the case with “Infinity War,” but the fact that the directing duo mentioned that “Infinity War” will be two different movies is perhaps the most interesting bit of information from the latest reveal.

Obviously, fans expected the previous crop of “Avengers” like Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to return for the finale. However, the MCU will have expanded immensely with characters like Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Vision (Paul Bettany), Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and many more. This doesn’t even factor in the space-based “Guardians of the Galaxy” or the slew of heroes established in Netflix’s “The Defenders” lineup.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the “Infinity War” is based on a comic book storyline from 1992 that brought all of the characters in the Marvel Universe together. They had to battle Thanos (Josh Brolin), who wielded the Infinity Gauntlet powered by the Infinity Stones which have been heavily teased throughout all of Marvel’s Phase 2 properties. In order to accomplish the same magic that the written source material had, they may need to separate the cast into two movies in two different theaters of the war.

Perhaps the Guardians of the Galaxy will encounter a few heroes in space, or the group might have to retreat to Asgard for some warfare in Thor’s hometown. Sadly, with the first “Infinity War” installment not expected to arrive until 2018, there’s no telling how different the landscape of the Marvel universe will be between now and then. What is clear is that fans have no clue what the actual titles for the two-part movie event will be.

What would your pitch for each “Infinity War” movie be? Comment below or tweet your thoughts to @TylerMcCarthy.