The Marvel Cinematic Universe began its decade-long march to box office superiority with the moderately successful superhero flick Iron Man. Nineteen movies and nearly $17 billion later, and the Marvel Studios brainchild is now the highest-grossing film franchise of all-time, which was punctuated earlier this week with yet another ticket booth touchstone.
Having earned an unprecedented $250 million-plus opening weekend stateside, and subsequently becoming the fastest film to reach the $1 billion plateau, Avengers: Infinity War once again made box office history when it finally smashed through the $2 billion barrier – a feat only ever achieved thrice before: Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($2.068B), Titanic ($2.187B) and Avatar ($2.788B).
What does the writing team behind the film have to say about the accomplishment, though? Well, quite a lot. “It’s nuts,” said one half of the MCU dream team, Christopher Markus. “I will say on the Sunday morning when it’s like 10 or something and Deadline says it broke the record, I got really emotional,” added Stephen McFeely.
Markus and McFeely, who’ve collaborated on six MCU entries thus far – Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Infinity War and Avengers 4 – aren’t so much interested in the money, but rather, what it represents:
“It’s not my money, but it’s a validation of a s— ton of work. The idea that it resonated and became slightly historical, at least for the moment, is really nice,”continued McFeely.
With their most notable contribution still to come in the form of the aforementioned Avengers 4, Markus and McFeely were asked if they felt like they were almost home free, so to speak, to which they replied:
“There is some of that but there’s also most of the days trying to crack this movie that we haven’t cracked yet. We secretly don’t know how to do the job. We are sitting in a room like, ‘Is that good? I don’t know.’ It’s a culmination of 18 f—ing movies that came before it, and we didn’t write them all. We can’t take all the credit.”
While it might seem like the most enjoyable job in the world, composing the MCU isn’t without challenges, as the writers explain:
“There were times though because we’re writing this while they haven’t shot Ragnarok yet, Panther, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange. None of these movies exist, so we’re trying to plot out a movie, then you go see Ragnarok and say, ‘Hey, they did everything we’re gonna do with Hulk!’”
With the $2 billion mark in the rearview mirror now, next up for Avengers: Infinity War is the third spot on the all-time worldwide gross chart, currently occupied by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the difference might be too much for it to make up with its theatrical release currently winding down. Either way, no one can deny how successful the film has been and now all eyes are on its sequel to see how it performs next May.