Aside from Kevin Feige, obviously, there’s arguably no one more instrumental in the success of the MCU than the screenwriting dream team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
During the most recent episode of the Fat Man on Batman podcast, hosted by Kevin Smith, the dynamic dramatist duo discussed several of the most defining MCU moments for them, including how the Bucky and Falcon rivalry came into existence, and the emotional impact left in the wake of their fifth collaboration together, Avengers: Infinity War, surpassing the $2 billion pinnacle at the worldwide box office.
All in all, Markus and McFeely have collaborated on six MCU entries thus far, in the form of Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor: The Dark World, The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and the forthcoming Avengers 4. However, seeing as the pair are screenwriters, they don’t typically get the final say on what actually makes it into the movie.
As such, Markus and McFeely disclosed which of the many, and I mean many, epic moments they scribbled into the Infinity War script that they knew would be in the final cut. According to latter, the scene in which Thor (Chris Hemsworth) arrives in Wakanda, via the “superhero landing,” with Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) by his side, simply had to make it to the big screen “because the whole thing is built off of that.”
Interestingly enough, the “that’s obviously in the movie” moment doesn’t always come so easily, McFeely admitted, citing Steve Rogers jumping on a dummy grenade in Captain America: The First Avenger as an example.
“I think we were looking for the moment that he was tested and I think that, I wanna say [director] Joe Johnston may have said, ‘I saw something in another movie…'”
Markus then clarified the interaction between director Joe Johnston and themselves, saying:
“Joe Johnson said, ‘There’s some old war movie where a guy jumps on a grenade, and it doesn’t go off, but I don’t remember the name of it.’ So we stole it. But it worked great. We probably had a 15-minute montage in the first draft where Joe just went, ‘Couldn’t he just jump on a f-cking grenade?’ Well, yeah,”
Next up for Markus and McFeely, is, of course, Avengers 4, which, as reported by Joe Russo while inviting superfan Nem: The Infinity Watcher to set, is headed for “pick-ups” this fall. As always, watch this space for more.
