Part of what has kept the MCU going from strength to strength is the studio’s willingness to keep things fresh and give each movie a different energy. Sure, fans will pick up on similar character arcs or all those villains that possess mirrored versions of the heroes’ powers, but on the whole the tactic works. Just look at how poles apart, say, Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther are.
From the sounds of it, Avengers: Infinity War will be no different. Marvel fans have got used to the idea of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes teaming up by now so, to ensure it keeps moving the franchise forward, the movie will apparently aim to find fresh ways to tell its story. At least, that’s what Robert Downey Jr.’s teasing. Speaking in a recent interview, he discussed how it was a challenge to avoid the urge to just regurgitate what worked in previous films and “expand” on them instead.
“I read in some magazine that the No. 1 fan-voted moment was the airport fight in Captain America: Civil War (2016), because there are so many superheroes at once. But people don’t want a repeat of what’s worked well. The challenge this time was how do we expand something without repeating something that has been executed well before. It’s the anti-process, if you will. Because usually, if something works, you just keep doing that.”
The Russo brothers have previously spoken about how they aimed to draw from fresh inspirations for Infinity War. In particular, they’ve cited classic heist movies as an influence. The crux of the film will, of course, be Thanos’ quest to find the Infinity Stones so, in effect, the Mad Titan is leading several heists in order to get his evil, purple hands on the all-powerful gems.
Circling back to Downey’s comments, and he’s right in saying that Civil War‘s airport scene is a seminal moment in the MCU, but hopefully Infinity War will be able to top it. If its ensemble superhero action you’re after, the movie should definitely have you covered in that respect. If nothing else, we fully expect the final third act showdown between the assembled Avengers and Thanos and his army in Wakanda to be pretty spectacular.
And we’ll get to feast our eyes on it in less than two weeks, as Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27th.
