We’re all looking forward to that moment in Avengers: Endgame when our favorite superheroes come back from limbo, hug, and, as a team, watch Captain America really, actually die. That reunion, however, could come early if the Oscars has anything to do with it. The Hollywood Reporter reports that, with hopes of a charismatic host dashed after the Kevin Hart debacle, the ceremony is trying to recruit “as many big-name cast members from Marvel’s sprawling Avengers franchise as possible” for some kind of star-studded stunt.
The assemblage would hearken back to the 2013 Oscars, when Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, and Samuel L. Jackson all took the stage in the wake of the success of 2012's The Avengers. But those were simpler times for the MCU, which has since blossomed into its own kind of multi-headed hydra. In addition to the aforementioned names, the franchise now includes A-listers like Brie Larson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Rudd, Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, and Bradley Cooper. Scoring even a handful of them, one imagines, would help distract from the ongoing controversy, not to mention serve as a nice commercial for both the sequel and Captain Marvel, which hits theaters a few weeks after the ceremony.
Per THR, the Academy is so devoted to this idea that they asked a number of Marvel’s best and brightest to not present at the Golden Globes in order to “ensure their appearance at the Oscars would have even bigger impact.”
The 91st annual Academy Awards will air on ABC on Sunday, February 24, which is presumably when Ruffalo will probably spoil Endgame’s ending.