Kevin Feige calls Avengers 4 a finale with multiple characters exiting MCU

Over the course of the past decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been slowly and surely building up to something quite momentous, and with AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and AVENGERS 4 now on the edge of the horizon, we're close to witnessing what Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige claims will be a definitive end to the franchise which launched all those years ago with IRON MAN.

While speaking with Vanity Fair for their lovely spread celebrating the ten-year anniversary of Marvel Studios, Feige said that AVENGERS 4 will "bring things you’ve never seen in superhero films: a finale." Kevin Feige mentions that the studio is "22 movies in, and we’ve got another 20 movies on the docket that are completely different from anything that’s come before—intentionally," but with the conclusion of AVENGERS 4, we'll be looking at the MCU as "two distinct periods. Everything before Avengers 4 and everything after. I know it will not be in ways people are expecting."

The difference between the two periods will be all the more noticeable as at least some of the original MCU characters will be "hanging up their capes and shields" following the release of AVENGERS 4. Part of the reason for those exits stem from Marvel's contracts with certain actors, including Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner, are coming to an end. There's no telling which actors will be calling it quits, but Johansson hinted that she may be among them:

“I feel a lot of joy for the next generation,” Johansson said. “It’s a bittersweet feeling, but a positive one.”

Plenty of new characters have been introduced since the first phase of Marvel's grand design, such as Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), and many more are on the way, so although the absence of those long-standing MCU characters will certainly be missed, I can't imagine that Marvel will ever be hurting for characters to build films around.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is slated for a May 4, 2018 release, with AVENGERS 4 following on May 3, 2019.