'Captain America 3' Will Finish The Story, But Will Chris Evans Pass The Shield?

We don't know plans for the Captain America 3 ending, and frankly wouldn't say if we did. The film is still two years away and hasn't started production yet. With The Winter Soldier coming to Blu-ray, however, the Russo Brothers just happen to be talking about the film. Some of the biggest questions they're fielding surround the fate of Chris Evans' character. The last film gave him two formidable characters to whom he might pass the Captain America shield: Sebastian Stan's Bucky and Anthony Mackie's Falcon. With Evans' Marvel contract running out soon, that pass seems like a viable option.

It becomes even more of a viable option when you look at Marvel's first threequel, Iron Man 3, which wrapped up Tony Stark's story in a nice bow with a fourth film nowhere to be seen. Could Chris Evans' Captain America story be ending on May 6, 2016 with a new hero continuing the story? Yes and no, say the directors.

Speaking to MTV, Anthony and Joe Russo do confirm that, yes. Captain America 3 will indeed wrap up this particular story. Here's Anthony Russo on the Captain America 3 ending:

[Whether this is the end] is a hard question to answer because it gets to the specific of where the narratives are going. I will say this: yes, for satisfying storytelling, you want a beginning, middle and end. That's the natural arc that we all thrive off of in narrative.

He continued to hint how the way Marvel Comics works could in fact lead to the end of the story actually just being a beginning:

The great thing about the Marvel universe, just like the publishing, it's a very vast, inter-connected universe, where characters will have their rise and fall, so to speak, and hand off to other characters. As the cinematic universe moves forward, you may start to see the cinematic universe adopt that same pattern, as the publishing has, where there's closure with some characters and new beginnings with other characters. How those hand-offs are made is always part of the fun.

So will he hand it off? It seems possible. Speaking to Collider, the Russos addressed Evans' contact (which reportedly ends after Avengers 3) and who could pick up the torch:

Anthony Russo: You know, to be honest with you, it's just – even though there's sort of a grand plan of things, Kevin Feige also has this awesome attitude of one movie at a time, which I think is very healthy, not to get too far ahead of yourself.  And I think even though we can see in the distant horizon some contracts coming to an end and whatnot, and sort of wondering about what happens, I think the truth is, we're not close enough to it to really be addressing it on a narrative level yet.

Joe Russo: When Bucky takes over the mantle at the end of Cap 3 – [turns to Anthony] did I just ...[LAUGHS] Did I just say that?  I meant to say Falcon. Falcon takes over the mantle at the end of Cap 3.  It's a process that, you know, you have to tell the best story that you can now and the contract issue's not necessarily something that we're worried all that much about.

A. Russo:  All we know is we get Chris Evans for this movie.

It's nice the Russos know what fans have been discussing and can make light of it. I definitely think the writing is on the wall for Chris Evans but whether or not that means a handoff in Captain America 3, The Avengers 3, or somewhere else, we won't know for a long time. How do you think Captain America 3 will end?