1. "Avengers: Infinity War" is finally here!
The Avengers meet the Guardians of the Galaxy and team up to protect the universe from Thanos, an intergalactic villain who's trying to collect all six Infinity Stones and use them to literally destroy half the universe.
The movie runs 2 hours and 40 minutes, and brings together the 76 main characters from the 18 Marvel movies.
The stakes are pretty high in this one and the rumor is that Thanos is actually going to kill at least one of the Avengers.
Everyone's contract is up after next year's fourth "Avengers" movie, so no one's safe going into this one except maybe Scarlett Johansson since they announced earlier this year that she's getting her own Black Widow movie.
As for the rest of the team, Captain America was last seen in "Civil War" when he broke his team out of prison and lost his original shield.
He gets a new one in Wakanda when he reunites with his buddy Bucky Barnes, who was finally cured of his brainwashing at the end of "Black Panther".
Thor was last seen in "Ragnarok", where he lost his hammer and one eye. That's the last time we saw the Hulk too. Iron Man was last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming".
A few of the other Avengers are still missing from the both trailers and the promotional posters. No word yet on what's up with either Hawkeye or Ant-Man.
Some people think that means they're at risk of being the ones who'll DIE however Jeremy Renner is listed on the credits for next year's untitled sequel, so I'd take that as a good sign. That movie's no longer being called "Infinity War Part 2", by the way.
As for Stan Lee's obligatory cameo in this movie, it happens during the Peter Parker bus scene you've seen in the trailer. And he says he thinks it's his funniest yet.
2. What are the Infinity Stones?
The Infinity Stones are the remnants of singularities that existed before the Big Bang. They were compressed and forged into six extremely powerful artifacts after the universe exploded. We first heard about them from Benicio Del Toro's character in "The Guardians of the Galaxy".
The Space Stone is hidden inside the Tesseract that blue cube we first saw in "Captain America". Loki stole it to open a portal to summon his alien army in the first "Avengers" movie and he got his hands on it again at the end of "Thor: Ragnarok".
The Mind Stone was in Loki's scepter and was used by the good guys to create Ultron, the artificial intelligence villain from "Avengers: Age of Ultron".
It now rests in the forehead of Paul Bettany's character Vision. He was created with it too and the stone in Loki's scepter is also how Elizabeth Olsen got her powers.
The Reality Stone is used to manipulate matter. It was in "Thor: The Dark World" in the form of the Aether, that red stuff the Asgardians gave to Benicio Del Toro's character The Collector for safekeeping during the end credits.
The Power Stone is the orb Star Lord and the other "Guardians of the Galaxy" used when they saved the universe. They gave it to Glenn Close and the Nova Corps.
The Time Stone is the Eye of Agamotto pendant that Dr. Strange now wears.
And the last stone is the Soul Stone. No one knows for sure where that one is, but some fans think it's how Black Panther can speak to his ancestors in Wakanda.
Other theories suggest that Thanos already has it or that it won't show up until next year's "Captain Marvel" movie. Now you know.
3. Marvel Is the Movie Franchise Americans Love the Most
"Avengers: Infinity War" opens TODAY, and it's going to be HUGE, because everyone loves superhero movies. So, it's not surprising that Marvel tops a new survey on America's favorite movie franchises.
The site Rotten Tomatoes polled 1,400 movie fans, and 26% said Marvel was their favorite franchise. "Star Wars" was second with 19%.
They defined 'franchises' as movie series or universes with three or more films and with at least one new film in the last five years.
The heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Black Panther, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Spider-Man, collectively rank #1 as the favorite characters with 28% of the vote. Han Solo is second, at 13%.
"Avengers: Infinity War" is the most anticipated franchise movie release of the year with 51% of the vote. "Solo: A Star Wars Story" is second with 15% followed by "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" at 13%, and "Oceans 8" with 12%.
A complete list of results hasn't been released, so it's unclear what other franchises ranked behind Marvel and "Star Wars".