Chris Evans sure sounds like he’s finished playing Captain America

Chris Evans appears to have hung up Captain America’s stars and stripes for good — or at least for now.

On Thursday, Evans tweeted that filming has wrapped on Avengers 4, the bookend to this year’s Avengers: Infinity War and seemingly the last chapter in Marvel’s Avengers team-up movies. (Marvel has not announced another Avengers movie beyond Avengers 4). But the wording of his message indicates that he’s also wrapped his tenure as Captain America:

Talking about being “eternally grateful” and playing the role in past-tense sound like more than someone who is relieved to be finished with a movie shoot; it sounds like Evans is finished playing Steve Rogers.

Evans’s tweet echoes what he’s been saying for the past several months about being done with the character after Avengers 4. In March he told the New York Times that he had no plans to return to the franchise once reshoots wrapped on the film, which he reiterated in an interview with Good Morning America during the Infinity War press tour, suggesting that there were no plans for him to play the character beyond 2019.

“I don’t know what’s next — but by 2019, that’s it,” he said.

Marvel has not yet confirmed anything about Cap’s future or what comes next for the Avengers, and the exact details of Evans’s contract are still unknown. But Evans finishing his turn as Rogers in Avengers 4 makes sense in the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s broader plot. Infinity War contains a looming theme of death that seemed to turn on Rogers’s worldview about “trading lives” and his willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Marvel is also introducing Captain Marvel in her own solo movie in March, and presumably to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s characters in Avengers 4, based on the Infinity War post-credits scene. That would make the film the perfect moment for the Avengers’ current leaders, like Steve Rogers, to pass the torch to the next generation of heroes like Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Spider-Man.

Given what Evans has said in interviews and the way the movies themselves have pointed to Rogers’s death, Evans’s gratitude tweet feels like confirmation that he’s saying goodbye to Cap — making Avengers 4 even more of a can’t-miss Marvel moment than it already was.

Avengers 4 is set for release on May 3, 2019.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via