The last time audiences saw Don Cheadle as War Machine, he was struggling to walk due to the accident he suffered in Captain America: Civil War. In that film, as Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) make their Quinjet getaway from the airport, War Machine takes off in pursuit, only to be accidentally shot down by Vision, who was aiming for the Quinjet. His power gone, he tumbles out of the sky and hits the ground hard, severing his spine. But Stark being Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), Rhodey is back on his feet by the end of the film going through physical therapy, breaking in some new Stark-Tech cybernetics, courtesy of his best friend.
This makes him primed and ready to put the War Machine armor back on to fight the cosmic threat of Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War. However, with a world-ending threat as big and ominous as that, can we expect Col. James Rhodes to make it out of that alive?
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Apparently yes, at least in some way. This news comes courtesy of Gwyneth Paltrow who, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for her lifestyle company, quipped to the industry trade, “I went to Atlanta to do Avengers 4, so I’m in and out for that, and it’s weird to go back and forth. We’re growing fast, and balls are dropping all the time. But honestly, I was on set and thought, “You sit here for two hours sipping tea, Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle are making me laugh hysterically — why the hell did I give this up?”
Avengers 4, eh?
The only way Cheadle could be in Avengers 4 is if he makes it out of Avengers 3 (Infinity War). That is, unless, they do flashbacks. Or, it’s also entirely possible that he doesn’t make it, but then they use an Infinity Stone to resurrect him, or turn back time. Or maybe he, Stark and Pepper Potts end up in a pocket dimension at the end of Infinity War and have to make it back home to our reality. Or maybe, MAYBE, a lot of heroes die in Infinity War, but they defeat Thanos by resetting time and Avengers 4 opens on an alternate timeline, sort of like “House of M” or “Age of Apocalypse,” or the original comic story version for “Age of Ultron.”
Honestly, with the Infinity Stones in play, there’s any number of things that can happen. Let’s just count our lucky stars that we have Cheadle in two more Avengers films.
He has two cats and knows all things about Doctor Strange but little else.
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