Avengers: Endgame Behind-the-Scenes Video Shows the Women of Marvel Celebrated by Robert Downey Jr.

When it comes to Marvel Studios, it looks like the future is female. After their first female-led superhero movie crashed the glass ceiling and made over $1 billion at the box office with Captain Marvel, the company has continued to pursue diversity and will follow up by finally giving one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes her first solo movie with Black Widow. Not to mention many of the female characters that continue to turn heads including Letitia Wright and Danai Gurira in Black Panther, Zoe Saldana and Pom Klementief in Guardians of the Galaxy, and many more.

Even Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. recognizes this new wave of excellence, and he and Gwyneth Paltrow took some time while filming Avengers: Endgame to celebrate the women of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as revealed by Paltrow’s latest Instagram post. Take a look below!

The meal was attended by Downey, Paltrow, Gurira, Kelmentief, Saldana, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, and Evangeline Lilly. Many of these actors will continue to play major roles in the MCU moving forward, though Downey and Paltrow are likely finished after their storylines came to a conclusion in Avengers: Endgame. So this dinner seems like a ceremonial passing of the torch.

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige said last year that movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel were just the tip of the iceberg, and that the MCU will better reflect the mantra of “The World Outside Your Window” in future projects — both behind the scenes and on the screen.

“Sometimes people have asked very directly, ‘Is [Black] Panther a one-off?’ in terms of inclusion representation and the answer is no, it’s the beginning,” Feige said in an interview with Variety. “That it worked out as well as it worked out just encourages to head in the direction that we were going to head anyway. You look at that film and the experience of the film…it was incredible. That movie, obviously, would not have been what it was if everyone sitting around the table looked like me or you and that’s actually true for all the movies.”

They will even begin to include more LGBTQ diversity in future productions, according to Marvel Studios EVP of Production Victoria Alonso.

“I would feel honored to have a member of the LGBTQ+ group represented in our films and I hope the future shows that,” Alonso wrote in a Reddit Q&A earlier this year.

The future of the MCU continues when Black Widow premieres in theaters on May 1, 2020.