“Avengers: Endgame” featured many, many cameos, but one of the more surprising ones was when James D’Arcy briefly appeared as Howard Stark’s butler Edwin Jarvis, reprising his role from the short-lived ABC series “Agent Carter.”
During a Reddit AMA on Thursday, directors Joe and Anthony Russo explained why they included Jarvis in “Endgame,” which marked the first time any Marvel Studios film referenced a character exclusively from Marvel TV’s MCU-adjacent universe.
“Because we love James,” the directors wrote. “Also, because Markus and Mcfeely were instrumental in engineering that show, and because [Joe Rosso] directed one of the episodes. It seemed appropriate.”
The Russos were referring to Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who have co-written many Marvel Studios’ films including “Endgame,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and all three “Captain America” films. The duo co-created “Agent Carter,” which ran for two seasons on ABC and starred Hayley Atwell reprising her role as Peggy Carter from “Captain America: The First Avenger.”
The inclusion of Jarvis happened in “Endgame” when Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) travel back to a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in 1970 to retrieve the Tesseract during the film’s “Time Heist.” While there, Stark runs into his father Howard (John Slattery) and the two bond. It ends with the elder Stark being picked up by Jarvis, who was a main character in the ABC series.
The inclusion of Jarvis, however brief, was another way “Endgame” paid homage to the entire history of the MCU that came before it, including the TV series set inside the shared universe that was run by Marvel TV. But despite Marvel TV chief Jeph Loeb’s often-stated assurance, “It’s all connected,” the connection between the films and TV shows often felt tenuous.
But there will be much more synergy in the near future. Big-screen stars Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Vision (Paul Bettany), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are all coming to Disney+, the upcoming streaming service launching in November.
And as evidenced by Marvel Studios’ Comic-Con panel last month, those series will be as much a part of the MCU as upcoming films “The Eternals” and “Shang-Chi.”
Here are a few other tidbits the Russos gave us from the AMA:
- They are working on a “top secret” franchise, which may or may not be the global spy franchise with Amazon Studios.
- Shooting Tony Stark’s death was the most difficult scene for them to film in “Endgame.”
- Captain America was always worthy of Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) hammer Mjolnir, he just didn’t want to embarrass him in “Age of Ultron”
- There are still more easter eggs fans haven’t found in “Endgame.”
- Cap may not have recognized Red Skull when he returned to Vormir in 2014 to return the Soul Stone.
- Cap lived out his life in an alternate timeline and used a quantum suit to return to the main timeline at the end of “Endgame.”
- They are still hopeful for a “Community” movie: “It would be really tragic if we couldn’t complete the ‘…and a movie’ part of that hashtag.”