Avengers: Infinity War Directors Explain Why They Killed Off [SPOILERS]

Perhaps more than anything else, Avengers: Infinity War is a film of huge emotional stakes.

It’s the culmination of 18 movies, after all, so it’s only fitting that Joe and Anthony Russo – not to mention screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely – dialed things up to 11, all the while killing off one or two major characters in order to remind viewers that Thanos isn’t messing around.

With the Infinity Gauntlet in his grasp, Josh Brolin’s Mad Titan soon becomes the most powerful being, well, ever – one who quite literally holds the fate of the universe in the palm of his giant, purple hand. So when Avengers: Infinity War reaches its finale, and Thanos has successfully acquired all six stones, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes come to the devastating realization that they’re hopelessly outgunned.

Getting to this defining moment took a lot of time and a lot of effort though, and as Anthony Russo tells ComicBook.com, the decisions they made about who lives and who dies were based entirely on the story.

Joe and I can’t go into too much detail because we’re not gonna talk about where the story goes from here. All of our choices are based on story. It’s based upon the road that these characters have traveled, in not only this movie, but throughout the entire entity up to this point because, again, these movies are the culmination. So all we can say is that they are very focused story choices. That’s our motivation for everything. And, again, that’s why we love Marvel so much is they never let the tail wag the dog. The creative choices always lead the process and then they figure out how to pull off the miracle of making it work on a business level.

On the ground level, Infinity War‘s grim finale resulted in a lot of tears among the cast and crew – particularly from those MCU stars who were informed that their on-screen character was about to feel the full wrath of Thanos.

Joe Russo added:

A lot of tears. They’re never easy conversations to have with people. But I think that people are understanding that the story comes first and a lot of these people have really amazing careers and lots of films that they want to make so, ultimately, I think they go through a grieving process like anyone but you come out the other side at some point and understand what being part of the Marvel Universe did for you. And, like with us, when we move on from Marvel, it’s done amazing things for us and allows us a lot of other opportunities in our careers.

And so begins the long, long wait for Avengers 4. It won’t hit theaters until May of 2019, but in the meantime, Infinity War continues to exert its dominance at the worldwide box office, and may well reach $2 billion before all is said and done.