Feige explains why Endgame's title was kept secret, why the MCU's future will stay secret

With just two months to go until the release of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is shedding some light on the secrecy surrounding the film, and when we'll learn more about the future of the MCU. 

Once upon a time, back when Marvel announced a massive film slate that included, among other things, Black Panther and Captain Marvel, the two Avengers films following Age of Ultron were dubbed Infinity War - Part I and Infinity War - Part II, setting the stage for a two-part story with the installments dropping one year apart. Not long after, though, Marvel opted for a change. Infinity War would instead become the name of the first film, while the name of the second film would be revealed at a later date. 

That later date finally arrived late last year, months after Infinity War hit theaters and months after a press tour in which the filmmakers had assured fans the new title was coming, and the reason for the title change was that the films were separate stories that need to stand alone, and the second film's title was now a spoiler for the first. 

Speaking to Collider ahead of the release of Captain Marvel, Feige elaborated on the thinking behind that.

“Well, I think I’d said that it all had gotten blown out of proportion to some extent. But it was a spoiler, because if you knew before Infinity War came out that the next movie was called Endgame, then you know that there wasn’t an ending to Infinity War. But that had been the title of the movie from the moment we conceived of doing the two films. In large part, because…it’s seeded right there. I mean, it’s seeded in Ultron.”

So, the title change was actually in service to hiding the fact that we were about to see a two-part story, which Marvel initially revealed in their announcement. People who pay attention to such things may have already been in on the studio's thinking, but the general moviegoing public was not, and therefore the ending of Infinity War came as a bigger shock to many fans who thought they'd see the Avengers emerge victorious — or at least not defeated — ahead of their next film. You could argue that, as a fan, you saw this coming a mile away, but think back to those visceral reactions coming from Infinity War's opening weekend, and it looks like the secrecy paid off. 

Of course, now that Endgame is nearly upon us, there's the issue of how long we'll have to wait to find out what lies beyond that, and which characters will be carrying the Marvel Cinematic Universe into its next chapter. The good news is Feige already knows when those announcements will be arriving. The bad news is we'll have to wait until at least this summer, after Spider-Man: Far From Home arrives in theaters.

"As we've been doing for years, we aren't going to announce anything post Avengers: Endgame or Spider-Man [Far From Home] until post Endgame and Spider-Man," Feige told ComicBook.com at a press event for Captain Marvel. "As you know as a fan, there's a tremendous amount of potential and a tremendous amount of additional characters and storylines and groups of characters that we're going to keep playing with. And again, that's a testament to Marvel and to the amount of storylines and characters and amazing, amazing runs that have been in the Marvel comics."

So, as with Infinity War, we'll have a few months to sit with the events of Endgame and what they meant for the greater scope of the MCU before Marvel reveals anything definitively new, beyond of course already developing projects like sequels to Black Panther and Doctor Strange and that Eternals movie. Marvel Studios will enter a new era of storytelling two months from now, but that doesn't mean the MCU secrecy will go away. 

Avengers: Endgame is in theaters April 26. Spider-Man: Far From Home is in theaters July 5.