Most people in the world have no idea what’s going to happen in Avengers 4, but Samuel L. Jackson has come up with a pretty good theory. Speaking with Vulture, he says he’s pretty sure the resolution to Thanos’ genocidal dreams—which have gone largely unchecked up until now—will involve Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. Granted, we’re all pretty sure about that, since the post-credits stinger for Avengers: Infinity War showed Jackson’s Nick Fury contacting Captain Marvel, but he seems to have come up with an actual way for Captain Marvel to resolve the predicament Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have found themselves in without getting any spoilers from Marvel Studios.
“I do know there’s a solution that they didn’t even have to tell me,” Jackson told Vulture recently, “just because I know who Captain Marvel is and what all that means.” Of course, Jackson is in the Captain Marvel movie, which is an origin story set in the ‘90s that will most likely establish some kind of relationship between Larson’s character and Nick Fury, so he does have more of an inside scoop that anyone not in the movie. It makes sense for him to have an idea for how Captain Marvel will impact Avengers 4, but it’s cool that he’s thinking about these stories beyond what Marvel tells him that he needs to know for a given role.
As for why Jackson believes that Captain Marvel will save the day in Avengers 4, it seems like a lot of his confidence comes from Brie Larson herself. Jackson says Larson wants Captain Marvel “to be a special film” that will “represent women” with “heart and depth,” and she’s taking that responsibility “very seriously” by doing research on female pilots and other real-life struggles. Jackson also notes that Captain Marvel is “the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe,” which is a nice tease for the battle we’re probably going to see between her and Thanos in Avengers 4.