“We’re in the endgame now…”
At the outset, when Avengers: Infinity War was little more than a collection of ideas strung together by the Russo Brothers, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige actively encouraged his screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to pursue what is arguably one of the most devastating third acts in MCU history.
Indeed, such was the emotional wallop of Thanos’ mass genocide that many viewers left their local theater in a state of disbelief, wondering how on Earth Avengers 4 can simultaneously up the ante and wrap things up – at least for this installment of the MCU – come 2019.
But before we get swept up by online speculation, The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Markus and McFeely about Infinity War‘s wildly ambitious finale, where the former confirmed that Kevin Feige was fully behind their proposed idea from the outset.
From the very beginning, Kevin said, ‘Don’t be afraid of that move. It’s OK to go there, and let’s go there’.
Given how Infinity War is angled as a loose adaptation of the famous “Infinity Gauntlet” series from Jim Starlin, it was only fitting that the final product included a shot of Thanos snapping his fingers, reducing half of all life in the universe to dust.
The question was, ‘How do you get there? How do you bring the most story and emotion and pathos?’ And was it going to be where it was? Do you do it at the end of the movie? Do you do it at some other spot?
Frankly, while Avengers: Infinity War is not without its problems, Marvel’s creative quartet – namely Markus, McFeely, Russo and Russo – achieved the impossible with their MCU blockbuster, and one need only look to the historic box office numbers for evidence of that.
