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Warning: this story contains numerous spoilers forAvengers: Infinity War.
The writers ofAvengers: Endgamerealize that their blockbustersthree-hour-and-two-minute running timeseems excessive.
Together, they simultaneously wrote bothEndgameand the movie it sequalizes over the course of four years.
(Its distributor Disney could remedy that problem by booking more theaters.)
But for the MCU faithful, fascination withAvengers: Endgamehinges on a literallife-and-death questions.
As in: which superheroes will live and which ones are never coming back?
InInfinity War, the screenwriters unceremoniously murdered several Avengers and important Avengers-adjacent characters.
In reality, not everyone wants to come back.
In January, he toldUSA Today, Im done.
I wont be playing the character again.
Sources also toldThe Hollywood ReporterthatBlack Pantherdirector Ryan Coogler has quietly closed a deal to write and direct the sequel.
3has tentatively been scheduled to reach screens in 2020.
We shall definitely see, says McFeely.
We can only tell the story with the characters in front of us.
I didnt knowReturn of the Jediwas dated for three years later.
I just knew Han Solo was in carbonite.
As is required of the job, the duo knows how to keep a secret.
We could move them around and place them as wed like.
So these [films] were really conceived together.
We could revise concurrently so that Movie One could talk to Movie Two.
It wasnt like we finished it then started the next one.
At one point, they infamously rejiggered the cards so that The SnapTM occurs inEndgameinstead ofInfinity War.
Its part of the R&D process: What if we put it here?
To test out the alternatives.
To know that the final decision that youre already leaning toward is the one.
Having The Snap gaveInfinity Waran ending as opposed to a cliffhanger.
It made Thanos journey complete.
He was the main character and had to succeed so that was that.
The screenwriters most daunting task was juggling the two movies$2 76 speaking characters.
The group dynamic doesnt mean that you have to sacrifice individuals characteristics, Markus says.
Part of that means going back over [the scripts] again and again.
Rather than seeming like a cardboard cutout of a character who youve seen [before].
We learned this onCivil War which looks like a cake walk in the rear view mirror compared to this.
Characters only show up when the story absolutely demands it.
We had versions of, Heres what Steve and Natasha were doing betweenCivil WarandInfinity War.
But it had nothing to do with Thanos.
And it had nothing to do with Infinity Stones.
So those things got jettisoned.
The writers continued to refine both films scripts from May 2016 until years end, when production onInfinity Warbegan.
They later returned for reshoots in September 2018 and January 2019.
Its been our lives, McFeely says.
Us pushing these two rocks up two hills.
