Speaking to fans at yesterday's Wizard World Cleveland, director siblings Joe and Anthony Russo teased MCU developments to come in Captain America: Civil War and Avengers:Infinity War to their fellow hometown Clevelanders. On Civil War, they stated that they'll be twice as aggressive with Captain America as they were in Winter Soldier. Joe Russo explained----
"We really did a radical reinterpretation of Captain America in 'Winter Soldier'. We were twice as aggressive in tone and execution on 'Civil War.'
As for their earlier comments this year about 67 characters appearing in Avengers: Infinity War, the Russo's clarified that there are actually 68 and they described them as "distinct characters" not necessarily superheroes or main characters. Still, that's quite a large number of characters to keep track of and given the complexity of the MCU, though certain characters will have minor roles in Infinity War, those same characters could be the star or co-star of their own film/TV show/Netflix drama. That means it's not possible for Joe and Anthony to just casually insert them into their film without carefully considering what's happening in their own respective franchises.
"We have to tell a story and that story has to be built around the characters' emotional arcs. And we can only have so many of those."