There are plenty of Easter Eggs to find inAvengers: Infinity War, and Captain America’s phone number was supposed to be one of them. You can clearly see the phone number in the flip phone thatSteve Rogersgave to Tony Stark at the end ofCivil War, when Bruce Banner picks it up. The number is 678-136-7092, which is an Atlanta based number where most of the production forInfinity Warand the upcomingAvengers 4took place. As it turns out, the Russo Brothers had the number set up for a viral marketing campaign, but Disney’s legal team said no to this coolCaptain AmericaEaster egg.
AfterInfinity Warhit theaters, severalMarvel Cinematic Universe devoteescopied down Steve Rogers' digits to call after the movie. However, the line was disconnected. When people found out that the number was a real phone number, confusion started to spread. Why not just use the normal 555 prefix like most movies and TV shows use? In a recent interview, the Russo Brothers admit that they set up the phone number with the intention of fans calling it and receiving the voicemail of Steve Rogers. Joe Russo explains.
“We actually had intended to create a fake voicemail from Steve Rogers. For the people that left the theater and called that number, they would get a voicemail from Steve Rogers.”
The idea that fans could have called and left a message on Steve Rogers' voicemail would have been a pretty awesome idea. One can even imagine using some of the best messages in a latter part of theInfinity Warpromotional campaign or even bonus features on the Blu-ray. It was all set up and ready to go, butDisney’s legal teamintervened and shot the idea down at the last minute. Anthony Russo says.
“And that number was the actual number that we were going to use. We were sort of given that number. We had it all ready to go, but legal took that away from us.”
It’s unclear why Disney took away the use of Steve Rogers' voicemail, but they must have had a good reason for it. It might have been something that hackers were easily able to get into and use for nefarious purposes, which could’ve been expensive to set up a security defense system for a viralEaster Egg. At the very least, it’s cool to see a phone number in a major motion picture as big asInfinity Warwith a real number instead of the normal 555 prefix.
Infinity Warisstill in theaters and getting closer and closer to the $2 billion clubat the worldwide box office. Maybe if they had Steve Rogers' real voicemail set up, they’d already be at the $2 billion mark by now. We’ll never know. The sights have been firmly onAvengers 4anyway, so maybe that phone number will pop up again with a working voicemail. You can read more of the interview with the Russo Brothers atMashable.
