We are in the year that will end the Infinity Saga and will mark a new beginning for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU is going to bring about a major change as post-Avengers: Endgame, Marvel fans will also have to watch all the Disney+ TV shows as they will also be canon to the MCU. The point to be taken into consideration here is that every single MCU hero will get a solo or duo project by 2020, except War Machine (and obviously Quicksilver).
Iron Man, Captain America & Thor have already had trilogies. Guardians of the Galaxy have had 2 outings and ditto for Ant-Man and the Wasp. Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Hulk, Spider-Man & Captain Marvel have also had solo films. By 2020, Black Widow will get her first solo, Hawkeye will get his solo series, WandaVision will focus upon the lovers, Falcon & Winter Soldier will get their own show and Loki will also get a solo spin-off series. Quicksilver is too dead to even be noticed, so the only hero who hasn’t got a solo outing and probably never will is, James “Rhodey” Rhodes aka War Machine.
His real career actually began in Iron Man 2 as that was the movie that gave him the most amount of focus and screen time. Iron Man 3 conveniently ditched him. Civil War did use him well, but again he was underused in Infinity War due to the massive line up of the characters. Now Avengers: Endgame has trimmed half of the cast members, so Rhodey could get to shine a bit especially due to the fact that this very well could be his final MCU outing.
Rhodes is also a character that has a very high number on the list of characters who could die permanently by the end of Avengers: Endgame. The fact that he is the only member of the team apart from the 4 big guns of Phase 1 itself tells that he may bite the dust with the likes of Captain America, Iron Man and probably even Thor. If he ends up dying then we will obviously never get a solo War Machine project. But things were not always like this. There was a time where War Machine was actually about to get a solo movie.
War Machine actor Don Cheadle recently talked to Entertainment Weekly as he was promoting Avengers: Endgame. It was here that he gave us details upon the solo War Machine project which was being developed by Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole before it was quietly shelved by Marvel Studios.
Here’s what Cheadle had to say:
“We kicked it around a bit. There was definitely going to be a lot of tension between his job as a military man and his allegiances to the code that he swore an oath to uphold, versus the changing world. I think they probably would have run afoul of each other a little bit, but I don’t know if he would have been a straight fugitive, or if he would have become decommissioned. But there was definitely going to be some tension between those two worlds.”
Well, the time has surely passed now, and we just don’t need a War Machine solo project now. Sure we’d like for him to get more bad-ass moments than he does, and Avengers: Endgame will fulfill our hunger for that. But beyond that, War Machine is a character that will be done, without a doubt. He can appear in the Falcon & Winter Soldier series as a surprise, but that would mean that he will have to survive Avengers: Endgame, and that probably won’t happen at all. So, let’s just enjoy War Machine while he lasts.
Here’s the new synopsis of Avengers: Endgame which comes out on April 26:
“Thanos snapped his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War, and half the life in the universe instantly dissolved. Now a ragged group of surviving warriors, including Captain America, Black Widow, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk works to counteract the Mad Titan’s genocidal action.
Since our heroes couldn’t stop Thanos the first time, what makes them think they can win in a rematch? The answer may be in overwhelming power, thanks to Captain Marvel, or in the tiniest spaces between atoms accessible to Ant-Man. Avengers: Endgame will rewrite the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it. When it’s all over, nothing will be the same.”
