Avengers: Infinity War - Adding The Defenders Is Complicated (But Not Impossible)

By Simon Gallagher / December 7, 2015

Depending on where you stand on the argument that Avengers movies are becoming too bloated, the disconnect between the Marvel TV arm and the main MCU is either a terrible or a great thing. After all it were a less complicated relationship, we might have Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil and Jessica Jones crossovers in the MCU. For completist fans, that would be a good thing, but adding further strands to a story that has proved conspicuously averse to killing people off or moving them on might have started some alarm bells ringing for more pragmatic fans. You can actually have too much of a good thing. But none of those concerns seem to have stopped the call for the Defenders - Marvel's Netflix ensemble - to be added to Infinity War. They might have ended up looking like second class citizens next to the A-list Avengers, but there's strength in numbers and Thanos is a threat big enough to warrant the bloat. Anthony Russo has now seemingly confirmed that there is some possibility of it actually happening - or at least that there has been some consideration of it. Talking to SUPER Interessante at CCXP, the Civil War responded to the question of whether any of The Defenders could realistically appear in Avengers: Infinity War, and intriguingly he didn't kill it:

"It's complicated. When we start to serialize the telling of stories it's difficult. You have to have a lot of control and focus on the course of history. The films are controlled by a group led by Kevin Feige, so they function as a unit. Other products, even if they are from Marvel, are controlled by others. Then there is the possibility of a crossover, but it's more complicated. It is a smaller scale version of the problem that exists when remembering that Fox holds the rights to some of Marvel's most popular characters, as does Sony and others. As storytellers, we only have control over what happens in Marvel movies, but everything is possible, Spider-Man (whose rights were held by Sony) became possible!"

Despite those debunked rumours that there was some friction between Feige and the TV showmakers, hearing things like that (which seemingly confirm that the MCU supremo hasn't got say in how the shows pan out) does suggest there's something of a breakdown in communication. But then they're basically entirely separate companies, so it's not all that unexpected. At this stage it seems more likely that we'll only ever see cameos of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage unless there's a major change in policy (and hopefully there will be, because a Defenders v Avengers movie would be awesome.) Do you want to see The Defenders added to Infinity War? Share your thoughts below in the comments thread.