“AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR” Premiering Early; Date Moved to APRIL 27

It is getting close to a month now following the general movie premiere of “Black Panther”, the latest in the long line of films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even still, there has been plenty of hype from that motion picture extravaganza from Marvel Studios still lingering in the air. But of course, fans of the MCU have not quite forgotten that there is another installment coming this year: “Avengers: Infinity War” where almost all characters from the film-verse will gather. For those getting impatient for the movie’s premiere however, the studio and the stars have some great news.

The Verge has tracked what appears to be a promotional stunt by Marvel Studios on social media, with actor Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man himself, playing an enthusiastic part. It started with a Twitter post from Marvel Studios asking fans how excited they are for the premiere of “Avengers: Infinity War” on May 4. Downey commented that he would like to see it earlier. The studio then proposed an “early screening” for April 27. When the film star asked if he could bring friends, the Marvel Studios account interpreted “friends” as the world, and announced that it will premiere earlier.

Yes, the release of “Infinity War” in theaters has been moved up by about a week, thus premiering a month before. And the little scripted social media dialogue between “Tony Stark” and Marvel Studios was an enjoyable promotional gimmick for MCU followers. Not for nothing did the final announcement over 92K likes and 36K comments in less than 24 hours. Lots of over-reacting GIF images have gone up in that Twitter thread, praising Marvel Studios for bringing the hype even closer than they ever thought possible. But there was also a degree of pragmatism going on with the earlier premiere.

As it stood, May was close to a critical saturation point with so many major blockbuster films opening in the month. 20thCentury Fox was also premiering its own (R-rated) Marvel adventure, “Deadpool 2”, on May 18, two weeks after the original May 4 opening for “Infinity War”. In addition, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” from fellow Disney subsidiary Lucasfilm was on for May 25. That is a lot of competing movies, and keeping them close together would have impacted each other’s box office earnings.

That being said, the releases of Marvel Studio’s MCU films for 2018 have been extremely close. There are three scheduled. Following February’s “Black Panther” and now-April’s “Avengers: Infinity War”, the last installment of the year – “Ant-Man and the Wasp” is due to premiere on July 6, not too long after the MCU’s fight against Thanos.

Photo courtesy moviefone.com