Captain America had a smaller role in Avengers: Infinity War for a reason

The writers of Avengers: Endgame explain why Steve Rogers didn’t have a major presence in Infinity War.

Avengers: Infinity War had the massive task of servicing multiple characters across different corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a result, some characters didn’t receive as much screen time as others, including Captain America. Steve Rogers may not have had the biggest role, but this wasn’t done without purpose.

Infinity War and Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely caught up with io9 to discuss the upcoming MCU sequel. Naturally, they were asked about character arcs in both films. McFeely stated that they aimed to give some characters bigger or smaller roles based on the stories of each film:

"“When I was talking about [Infinity War], I very often said that sometimes we gave ourselves permission to tell more story for a character in Endgame than in Infinity War.”"

McFeely named Captain America as a prime example, and explained that his smaller role in the first film was to set the stage for a more interesting arc in Endgame. With this, they didn’t feel that the character was necessarily shortchanged. And of course, it also helps that this film will be focusing on a smaller amount of characters:

"“Cap’s a great example. People counted Cap’s lines [in Infinity War] and he had like 20. So Cap steps forward, as you can probably tell, pretty dramatically in Endgame. And that’s because we knew some people had more interesting stories after [the Snap] than before it. Cap and Natasha are good examples of that. So I wouldn’t say we shortchange anybody [in Endgame], but part of the reason there are only [13] people on that poster was to go deeper with fewer.”"