Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame ended up grossing over $4.7 billion worldwide. With that kind of money and brand recognition enjoyed by Avengers, it’s highly unlikely Marvel will let it slide. And yet, there hasn’t been any announcement of a new Avengers movie. It looks like Marvel Studios are playing yet another long game this time and that may have something to do with Carol Danvers.

MCU Cosmic brings forth a new rumor stating that Marvel Studios might be setting up a new Avengers movie / team with Captain Marvel 2. A few days back, a sequel to Captain Marvel was quietly placed in a July 2022 slot. The first one made over $1 billion worlwide so that was a given. But Jeremy Conrad of MCU Cosmic states that whatever storyline ends up being a part of the sequel would naturally segue into Avengers movies down the road, much like Captain America: Civil War played a vital role in setting up the last two Avengers films.

This connection may extend much deeper per the rumor. It’s likely the director who lands the job of helming Captain Marvel 2 might also end up directing the next Avengers movie(s), much like the Russo Brothers ended up being a litmus test for Marvel Studios with Civil War before they jumped into Infinity War and Endgame. A Young Avengers team will continue to be setup on the Disney+ side after being likely introduced in Ant-Man 3 and the real, new lineup of Avengers might stick to the movies.

Add The Eternals and Thunderbolts to all this and it’s a good guess to see where Marvel is going. A singular team is no longer going to suffice so Marvel is carving out multiple subsets of teams. In a certain sense, this approach is not too different from the one taken by DC which is focused on creating smaller buckets of the overarching DCEU. It’s going to be one hell of a union if these smaller teams end up uniting in a future Avengers movie. Feige did at one point confirm that we’re headed toward some sort of big event.

Captain Marvel 2 is set for release on July 8, 2022.