Screen Rant's Ryan George reveals what (probably) happened in the pitch meeting for Avengers: Endgame, the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Endgame has already passed Avatar's domestic box office record, and is creeping up on its worldwide box office record as well.
Directed by MCU veterans Anthony and Joe Russo, Avengers: Endgame picks up the pieces after the calamitous ending of Avengers: Infinity War, bringing together what remains of the Avengers in one last-ditch effort to undo Thanos' decimation of half the universe. And then they fail. But then five years later they all come together again for a "time heist," planning to pluck the Infinity Stones from recent history and assemble them in a new gauntlet so that they can reverse the snap.
During the five year time jump, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have an adorable little girl, Thor puts on a lot of weight, and Captain Marvel, Black Widow and Hawkeye all do interesting things with their hair. It seems like all hope is lost until a random rat frees Ant-Man from the Quantum Realm and he shows up at Avengers HQ with a vague suggestion that they use time travel to solve everything. Tony discovers the secret formula for time travel in between doing the dishes, and off they all go.
Basically it's an excuse to revisit the greatest hits of the MCU so far, including The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and, er, Thor: The Dark World. Fat Thor and Rocket roam around Asgard, Black Widow and Hawkeye head to Vormir to hang out with Red Skull, War Machine and Nebula wait for Star-Lord's big dance entrance on Morag, Smart Hulk goes to ask the Ancient One very nicely for the Time Stone, and Iron Man and Captain America go to steal the Tesseract and the Scepter from... Iron Man and Captain America.
In addition to wrapping up more than a decade of movies, Endgame also has to say goodbye to MCU stalwarts Chris Evans (who ends his tenure as Captain America by going back in time and actually living through history instead of sleeping through it) and Robert Downey, Jr. (who goes out in a blaze of glory as Tony Stark, snapping Thanos and all his goons out of existence). Black Widow dies too, but don't worry - she'll be back.
Oh, and there might be an alternate timeline floating around out there where Loki got hold of the Tesseract and vanished with it. Probably nothing to worry about it.
