Avengers: Endgame could contain the final cameo appearance from Marvel Comics visionary Stan Lee, says director Joe Russo.
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“I believe that his final cameo is in Endgame. I don’t remember if he was well enough to do the cameo in Spider-Man [Far From Home],” Russo said when promoting Endgame in India (via PinkVilla). “But it was incredible to work with him.” Russo added, “I grew up on his comic books. Stan Lee was an idol of mine as a kid. To be able to have the opportunity to not only to work under the material he created but to work with him is a childhood dream come true.”
Lee, who died in November aged 95, most recently appeared posthumously in Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel. Simon Kinberg, writer-director of Dark Phoenix — not part of the Disney-owned studios’ shared Marvel Cinematic Universe — recently confirmed the X-Men sequel does not see an appearance from the mutants’ co-creator.
Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige previously hinted Lee could appear in Spider-Man: Far From Home, out in July, when speaking to Entertainment Tonight in March: “We’ll see,” Feige said of a potential Spidey cameo. “We’re heading — we shot a couple of others, so we’re coming up on the last of them, yes.”
The studio once filmed numerous cameos at once to better accommodate the ailing Lee, who filmed multiple cameos in one day under Guardians of the Galaxy franchise writer-director James Gunn. Those cameos later appeared in Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange, Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Russo later participated in a similar approach, telling BBC Radio in April 2018, “Stan, typically we try to get him out — he doesn’t love to fly — so we try to get him out for his cameos around the same time. So if we have other movies shooting on the same lot that we’re on, for instance Ant-Man [and the Wasp] or Avengers 4, we group his cameos together and then move him from one set to the next and get him through his cameos in one day.”
When asked about future Lee appearances in November, Feige was tight-lipped. “I’m not going to tell you what specifically, but Stan always appreciated a good surprise,” Feige told Variety.
Lee has appeared in all 21 Marvel Studios productions and Captain Marvel, the first released after his death, sent the creator off with a special tribute honoring a decade’s worth of cameos with an all-Lee opening Marvel Studios logo.
Avengers: Endgame opens April 26, followed by Spider-Man: Far From Home July 5.
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