About a decade ago, a little film by the name of Iron Man launched what would become the trendsetting, shared cinematic superhero universe known as the MCU. That effort was fronted by Robert Downey Jr. with Gwyneth Paltrow as the female lead and Jon Favreau both in front of and behind the camera, a mini-Avengers trinity that would go on to feature heavily in the MCU's mythology over the next 10 years.

Cut to 2017 where Joe and Anthony Russo are hard at work in post-production to bring Avengers: Infinity War into the world while also prepping to shoot Avengers 4, a Herculean task befitting the ambitious goals repeatedly set by the MCU as each film attempts to both connect to and surpass the previous one. But one gem (of many) in that grueling production schedule has been the reunion of Downey Jr., Paltrow, and Favreau, the latter of whom dubbed the trio the "Infinity Trinity"; check them out below:

[EMBED_TWITTER]https://twitter.com/Jon_Favreau/status/900164429098176512[/EMBED_TWITTER]

So is the "Infinity Trinity" appearing in Avengers: Infinity War or the placeholder title of Avengers 4?

Though the original plan was to shoot the third and fourth installments of the Avengers franchise back-to-back, that's not the aim anymore. When Steve Weintraub spoke to Kevin Feige just a few months ago, the Marvel Studios president revealed the schedule change:

“We’re doing them one right after another… It became too complicated to cross-board them like that, and we found ourselves—again, something would always pay the price. We wanted to be able to focus and shoot one movie and then focus and shoot another movie.”

So with Avengers: Infinity War wrapping earlier this summer ahead of production-start on Avengers 4 this month, there's a bit of wiggle room in that transition period for pick-ups, extra scenes, and/or reshoots for Infinity War.

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Image via Marvel

Jump to San Diego Comic-Con--about a month ago--where Joe Russo revealed to Steve that, not only is Avengers: Infinity War going to be a long-ass movie, but that there's more coming:

"I still have a couple of scenes that we haven't finished from Avengers 3 that I'm shooting in the next few months with my brother ..."

So that might help to explain why Downey Jr., Paltrow, and Favreau gathered together as the "Infinity Trinity" recently. You can probably bank on seeing Tony Stark / Iron Man (obviously) alongside Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan in at least the first part of this two-part spectacular. Will any or all of them survive to see Part 4? Time will tell!

Avengers: Infinity War opens May 4, 2018.

For more on all things Avengers, be sure to take a look at our recent write-ups:

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Image via Marvel Studios
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Image via Marvel