Chris Evans confirms Captain America exit

Chris Evans' next outing as Captain America will be his last.

Rumors have been circulating that the 35-year-old star will exit the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, but Evans has now confirmed that after the fourth as yet untitled Avengers movie, his time playing the role of Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, is up.

In an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to be aired on Monday (03Apr17), chat show host Ellen asked the Gifted star outright if the two upcoming Avengers films will be his last.

“It is. My contract is up,” Evans confirmed. “I have Avengers three and four. We do Avengers 3 now, four is the latter part of the year and after that, that is the end of my contract.”

The movies are currently in production, with filming taking place in a range of locations in Scottish cities Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Highlands.

Evans' Rogers was expected to meet his end in Captain America: Civil War. However co-directors Anthony and Joel Russo said at the time the idea of killing off Captain America “never made its way into a realistic outline,” according to movie website HitFix, with the director brothers preferring to focus on the Avengers team's fallout in the film.

Evans has appeared in 14 comic book films, but he's most famous for playing Captain America - a role he was initially reluctant to sign up for due to Marvel's insistence he sign on for a multi-picture deal.

He told Variety at the time: "If these movies take off and do very well, and my life changes and I don’t respond well, I don’t have the opportunity to say, listen, I need a f**king break. That just scared me."

The Boston native isn't the only Avenger who will be put out to pasture. Avengers: Infinity War and its as yet untitled sequel are also expected to retire Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., 51, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, 33, and Mark Ruffalo's The Hulk, 49.

Meanwhile, Marvel has already started to introduce new superheroes who are set to rise in the MCU, such as Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther and Tom Holland's Spider-Man.