Avengers: Endgame Director Says Thanos Had To Cheat To Escape Scarlet Witch

If you were to compile a list of some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s best action and fight scenes, the Battle of Earth from the climax of Avengers: Endgame might come out on top. The sheer scale of the conflict is something to behold, with Wakandans, Ravagers, Asgardians, Masters of the Mystic Arts, and the Guardians of the Galaxy coming together to fight off Thanos and his nearly-unstoppable army. It’s one of our favorite moments from the franchise as a whole, and it seems like we’re always learning something new about it.

As we’ve previously reported, Avengers: Endgame was released on digital platforms last week, and fans have been diving into the bonus featurettes and deleted scenes ever since. In addition, the home release comes with a commentary featuring directors Joe and Anthony Russo and co-writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. And as ComicBook.com reports, the film’s creators have provided a lot of insight into the moviemaking process as well as plenty of behind-the-scenes stories and trivia.

During the commentary, the group dished on how powerful Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch really is and said that Thanos essentially had to “cheat” in order to avoid dying at her hands.

“She’s really the biggest threat to Thanos on this field,” McFeely explains.

“She is a very powerful character, and he has to in a way, cheat, and sacrifice his own armies, just to escape her,” Joe Russo adds. “Wanda’s powers have a lot to do with her internal life. And there’s a growth to the powers and on the growth of her internal life and her ability to harness them, and the emotion and pain caused by Vision’s death has caused an acceleration of that growth.”

Interestingly, these four aren’t the only ones who have discussed this out in the open. As you can see down below, filmmaker Kevin Smith recently tweeted about a particular segment of the Battle of Earth, noting that Wanda came very close to killing Thanos once and for all. The only reason the Mad Titan managed to survive that encounter is because he called out for an artillery strike of sorts, sacrificing some of his own army in the process.

SPOILERS! Watched @Avengers twice today. Out of everyone who fought Thanos, Wanda came closest to killing him. If he didn’t call for the “Rain fire!” then the Scarlet Witch would have butchered the Mad Titan. (Even though I turn 49 on Friday, shit like this still matters to me.) pic.twitter.com/PFTZiOYJbL

— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 1, 2019

Needless to say, it looks like the creative team behind the MCU has yet to fully explore Scarlet Witch’s powers, as we only caught a glimpse of them in Avengers: Endgame. With any luck though, we’ll have the chance to see more of her in action when she makes an appearance in both WandaVision (her upcoming Disney Plus show) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.