'Avengers 4' Title: "Last Avenger" Name Leak Feels Like a Marketing Stunt

Bruce Banner actor Mark Ruffalo has a history of spoiling the Marvel Cinematic Universe in some fashion, and in the latest instance, he may have let slip the official title of Avengers 4. But is it really The Last Avenger?

Ruffalo made a guest appearance Friday night on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and willfully offered the title during a recorded interview. When the episode aired, a black bar appeared over Ruffalo’s lips and his words were bleeped out. But by Sunday, Anton Volkov from Trailer-Track edited the audio to reveal that Ruffalo said “The Last Avenger.”

But is this true or just some kind of carefully orchestrated publicity stunt? The actual interview segment between Ruffalo and Fallon comes off as scripted and contrived. They joke about that time Ruffalo spoiled the end of Infinity War almost nine months before the movie came out, and then when Fallon asks, Ruffalo blatantly just says, “The title of the next Avengers movie is ‘The Last Avenger.’”

Even with the black bar covering his mouth, his facial movements do indeed make it look like he said “The Last Avenger.” So there’s no really disputing the words coming out of Ruffalo’s mouth. But then he goes into detailed explanation of the “final battle” to Fallon, saying that Banner transforms into the Hulk and busts out of some tank. Most of that is also bleeped out.

The public discourse surrounding the segment seems way too deliberate, like how Ruffalo publicly pleaded for Fallon to not air the segment.

There’s also how the Avengers 4 directors, the Russo Brothers, “fired” Ruffalo via Twitter:

At this point, everybody’s in on the joke and just sort of taunting fans. If the title were “The Last Avengers,” it wouldn’t make any sense. It would buck the trend of naming conventions. There was The Avengers, then Avengers: Age of Ultron, and then Avengers: Infinity War, so it would only make sense for Avengers 4 to be structured in a similar way. But Avengers: The Last Avengers makes absolutely no sense.

All of the original Avengers plus a few more survived at the end of Infinity War, so there isn’t a singular “last” Avengers yet. If this were the title, then it would indicate that all of the survivors would wind up dead, leading to some kind of conclusion where the “last Avenger” has to finally defeat Thanos for good and undo the Snap. That sounds cool but doesn’t seem all that likely.

We’re chalking this up to some kind of weird prank, but maybe it means there’ll be a real title announcement soon? We sure hope so.

The Last Avenger Avengers 4 will be released in theaters on May 3, 2019.

Relive that time Shuri totally outsmarted Bruce Banner and Tony Stark in about five seconds.