'Avengers: Endgame' Fan Theory Reveals How The Ancient One May Play A Role

Avengers: Endgame is the biggest movie Marvel Studios has worked on to date. With the production only having released a short teaser trailer, fan theories have started running rampant on what happens in the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster.

According to one plausible fan theory, Tilda Swinton could end up reprising her role as the Ancient One from Doctor Strange. First and foremost, it should be noted that the foundation for this theory is the fact that Infinity War star Mark Ruffalo previously mentioned that he enjoyed working with Swinton on a recent project.

Since Ruffalo and Swinton haven't worked in any public capacity recently, it's largely been speculated the two worked together on either Infinity War or, as it was called at the time, Avengers 4.

That said, this particular fan theory says that the Avengers — namely Ruffalo's Bruce Banner/Hulk — will have to travel back through time in an effort to collect all of the Infinity Stones to form a Gauntlet of their own to help battle Thanos.

As the theory points out, half of the Infinity Stones were easily accessible through New York when the Chitauri invaded in 2012's The Avengers. While Dr. Erik Selvig used the Tesseract (Space Stone) to open the portal in the sky, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was flying around with his Sceptre, which contained the Mind Stone at the time.

The theory goes on to state that at least Banner and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) know the location of Dr. Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) Sanctum Sanctorum, as they visited it in Avengers: Infinity War. To have a chance at getting all three of the stones rather quickly, the Avengers could someone travel back in time to retrieve the three stones before moving on to locate the Soul, Reality, and Power Stones.

If you remember back to Doctor Strange (2016), you should remember that there are three sanctums throughout the world — one in New York City, one in London, and one in Hong Kong. In the Scott Derrickson-helmed flick, we see that all three sanctums are connected through a portal point in Kamar-Taj — where the Time Stone presumably was at the time of the Battle of New York.

Because of this, the theory reads, Banner and Strange will visit the Sanctum in an attempt to get the Time Stone from Swinton's Ancient One and company. Though the Redditor's theory states that the Avengers would have to fight the Sorcerer Surpreme, Kaecilius, and Baron Mordo, it seems much more likely that either a.) the Ancient Ones already knows about the events unfolding thanks to her access to the Dark Dimension or b.) Stark is able to convince her to use the Time Stone to see the future, which convinces her to hand over the Time Stone to the Avengers.

What do you think of the Ancient One theory? Do you think she'll return, even though she died in Doctor Strange? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Avengers: Endgame opens April 26th.