Back in May, Joe and Anthony Russo announced that Avengers: Infinity War  -  Part 1 and Avengers: Infinity War  -  Part 2 were due for a name change. According to the Marvel directors, the two films were shaping up to tell two very separate stories, and keeping them grouped under the same subtitle would be misleading to fans. This name change became a reality on Friday, with The Hollywood Reporter announcing that Disney had renamed the former as Avengers: Infinity War and scratched the name for the latter entirely.

While Marvel has always emphasized long-term planning when it comes to the future of their movie franchise, this change of direction with the Avengers: Infinity War movie could be seen as a reaction to growing audience frustration with two-part finales. This was a subject we wrote about in-depth back in 2014; since then, high-profile franchises like The Hunger Games and Divergent have seen diminishing returns at the box office as fans grew weary of having to dip into the wallet twice for one movie’s worth of, well, movie.

And if the title change means that Marvel has decided to condense the bulk of the ‘Infinity Wars’ story into one film, then kudos to them for being flexible with their ever-evolving franchise. People were skeptical that Captain America: Civil War would be able to introduce the framework for a hero-on-hero rumble in only one movie, but the Russo brothers did a solid job of making it work. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen a lot of changes over the last few years; if Marvel is pivoting slightly to accommodate its new characters and potential conflicts, this can only be viewed as a good thing.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the release date. According to the Hollywood Reporter article, Avengers: Infinity War is still set for a release date of May 4, 2018, while the now-untitled follow-up will hit theaters on May 3, 2019.

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