It Sounds Like One Surprising Avenger Might Survive 'Infinity War'

For years, Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have been speculating about which of their on-screen heroes will survive the upcoming battle with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and which ones will bite the dust once and for all. The follow-up movie, Avengers 4, has already begun filming, but that movie's title supposedly isn't being released until Infinity War comes out because it's a spoiler for what happens in its predecessor.

But now, thanks to a new interview, there's one surprising Avenger who sounds as if he or she will survive Infinity War and make it to the battlefield in Avengers 4. I've carefully avoided even vaguely hinting at who this person might be thus far, but I'll warn you now: there are possible spoilers below.

During a chat with Collider, actor Paul Bettany – who used to voice Tony Stark's artificial intelligence Jarvis but has since graduated to playing Vision in the flesh in Marvel Studios films – seemingly revealed that his character makes it through the gauntlet of Infinity War. When asked what it was like to be a part of a movie with such a huge cast, he responded:

"It felt like the biggest movie that I've ever made and will ever make, and we've still got to make the [next] one. It's fucking crazy!"

Let's get the requisite caveats out of the way, shall we? There's a chance he's saying "we" as in "we, the employees of Marvel Studios" and not "we" as in specifically that he will be in Avengers 4. There's also the chance that he's just messing with the reporter here and deliberately trying to mislead her into thinking he's coming back for a sequel.

But if we take him at his word, what could that mean for Infinity War? I always assumed that film would end on a dark, The Empire Strikes Back-style note with Thanos having achieved his goal of securing all six Infinity Stones for his powerful gauntlet and maybe even destroying a planet or two in the process; a cliffhanger with the Avengers hanging on by a thread, and maybe a last-second appearance of someone like Captain Marvel to get people to come back and see how they'll turn things around in the next film.

But that ending would essentially mean that Vision would need to die, right? Because one of the Infinity Stones is embedded in his forehead. It doesn't seem like he'd be able to survive if Thanos had that in a gauntlet, so either this movie doesn't end with Thanos getting every stone, or maybe there's some comic book science-y way that the team keeps Vision alive without it.

What do you think?

Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on May 4, 2018, and Avengers 4 arrives on May 3, 2019.