Fans are chomping at the bit for ‘Avengers: Endgame’ next month, and why shouldn’t they be? Last year’s ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ climaxed in the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers after Thanos collected all of the Infinity Stones and set them in his Infinity Gauntlet. Then, with a snap of his fingers, erased half the living beings in the universe, including a hefty portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s champions– Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, almost all of the Guardians of the Galaxy and more.
But according to Stephen McFeely, who co-wrote both ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ with Christopher Markus, that almost didn’t happen. As McFeely revealed to Empire:
“We had so much story in those early drafts of Infinity War that, if anything, we thought we maybe shouldn’t do The Snap until the end of act one of Endgame.”
Ultimately, it was Marvel Studios’ chief creative officer Kevin Feige who pushed for this dark finale. As he stated:
“We talked about that ending for years and years and years. It was the reason to adapt Infinity Gauntlet. What was the most shocking thing we could do? End the movie with The Snap.”
It’s not clear how ‘Infinity War’ would have ended if The Snap would have been pushed to ‘Endgame’. Would Thanos have just been shy one Infinity Stone? Does that mean that ‘Endgame’ would have picked up in the heat of battle?
Feel free to disagree, but I think the ominous, mournful trailers we’ve seen so far, showing the heroes of the Marvel Universe devastated by the loss of their many friends and half the people in the world sets the mood for the new film perfectly. They’re the lowest they have ever been. How do they climb out of this depression? We’re all dying (no pun intended) to know.
Luckily, we don’t have long to wait, as ‘Avengers: Endgame’ will finally arrive on April 26.