Home Movies

Avengers: Infinity War Director Explains Why [SPOILERS] Death Scene Was So Emotional

It's safe to say that the vast majority of Marvel fans out there have seen Avengers: Infinity War at least once by now. Which means that we can also pretty much guarantee that every single one of them was on the verge of tears as the credits rolled. The blockbuster movie proved itself the darkest, most dramatic MCU entry yet, as the climax saw many of Earth's Mightiest Heroes wiped out by Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet.

It’s safe to say that the vast majority of Marvel fans out there have seen Avengers: Infinity War at least once by now. Which means that we can also pretty much guarantee that every single one of them was on the verge of tears as the credits rolled. The blockbuster movie proved itself the darkest, most dramatic MCU entry yet, as the climax saw many of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes wiped out by Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet.

Recommended Videos

There were so many deaths of familiar characters in the film that it could have felt like some of them didn’t get their due and the emotion didn’t hit home. In actual fact, though, each death landed like a punch to the gut, with every fan probably having a different choice for which one affected them the most.

It must have taken a lot of care from the filmmakers to ensure that these key moments were as impactful as possible and Infinity War co-director Joe Russo can attest to that, as he’s now opened up about how he and his brother Anthony approached handling these shocking scenes.

While speaking at a Q&A at his old school, Iowa City High, he discussed, in particular, what the directors tried to convey in two of the most emotional moments from the film – Peter Parker’s death in Iron Man’s arms and Thanos’ murder of Gamora.

“We made those deaths impactful- emotionally, because you have an emotional connection with those characters and it’s difficult taking someone like Peter Parker and putting him in that position. What 16 year old wouldn’t want not to go in such the way it’s shown so we set up that relationship between he and Tony Stark in separate movies to lead to that moment- it’s a father-son relationship. It’s painful to watch.”

Continuing on, he said:

“Certainly the most painful to watch is the Gamorra sequence because Thanos is a horrible despicable creature- who believes that he sincerely loves her- which makes it a lot harder to watch. So we try to complicate things emotionally because our job as storytellers is to tell the best story we can and make your experience as many emotions as possible when you watch the film.

Because ultimately it is a- you’re paying money to go see it and if we can make you laugh, cry, happy, sad and feel catharsis- you get a lot more for your money than just laughing or just crying.”

Russo then went on to discuss how the directors’ approach to the emotional heft of Infinity War was very much an extension of what they’d aimed to do in their previous two installments in the MCU: namely, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War.

“We just planted the emotion of it- we love the characters as much as anybody- we think very hard about how the audience feels- how we feel and what can make the scenes complicated as possible- to make it as painful as possible- again the job of the storyteller. And after 18 movies we’re really committed to making this cathartic and to tell a truthful story as possible. It’s not like we led you down the road in Winter Soldier took Bucky and turned him into a villain for most of the film.

So we took a popular character and made him a killer. Kills a lot of people in that movie. Then in Civil War was- the Avengers getting divorced in a very messy divorce- we keep trying to have game changers at the end of each film but we are slowly moving towards deconstruction.”

Speaking of deconstruction, half of the Avengers were technically deconstructed by the end of Infinity Waralong with our hearts. How many of these deaths will stick, though? Well, we can’t say for sure, but it’s already been promised that not all of them will be reversed – so don’t be too surprised if some of your favorite heroes don’t return for Avengers 4.