No doubt in an effort to bolster Captain America: The First Avenger's (CATFA) second weekend in theaters — and to counter all of those unscrupulous people who have flooded the internet with their pirated camera phone videos of the awesome post-credits teaser for Marvel's next big superhero movie, The Avengers, which is currently in production — Marvel and distributor Paramount have released, via Yahoo!, the final scene from CATFA. (Don't worry, it won't spoil the ending of the real story in CATFA — Cap's battle to stop the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) from destroying the Eastern seaboard.)
The scene, set in Times Square, shows Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans), waking up in his future, our present, and meeting S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) for the first time. Additionally, a short preview of the aforementioned Avengers teaser is included, offering those of you have not yet seen CATFA a first look at Cap's new costume, Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) new costume and Black Widow's (Scarlett Johansson) new...hairstyle.
Did you catch the clever reference to Iron Man in the Avengers preview? Sure, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is present, but there's no armor in sight. However, if you look closely, you'll notice Stark is wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt. Black Sabbath is the heavy metal band that wrote the 1970 song "Iron Man" that director Jon Favreau used to promote the first Iron Man movie (and in the closing credits).
The Avengers was written and is being directed by Joss Whedon, creator of TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. The plot of the movie remains a closely guarded secret, but we know from the post-credits scene in Thor that it will involve the cosmic cube (also seen in CATFA) and Thor's malevolent brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Beyond that, there are rumors that Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) will be one of the villains (since he was instrumental in the team forming in the Marvel comic books) or that it will be the alien supervillain Thanos or even an invading army of alien shapeshifters called Skrulls. The cast includes Clark Gregg as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson, Cobie Smulders S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill and Stellan Skarsgård as Dr. Erik Selvig.