JAMES GUNN: So, tell us about how it all started.
[LAUGHTER]
JON FAVREAU: Oh, it's all coming out tonight, isn't it?
PEYTON REED: Ryan, did you come down just for this?RYAN COOGLER: Yeah.
FAVREAU: Seven directors here. No shortage of opinion.
[ALL LAUGHING]
[INAUDIBLE CONVERSATIONS]
FAVREAU: I just like the superhero stuff,
you know, I'm a geek and I thought it was supercool.
And I've even done a bit part in one of the Batman movies.
So, to me, it was...Which Batman movie were you in?
It was in Batman Forever.
The Adam West one, back in '66.
[LAUGHING] Yes, that's right. That's right.
It was the early days of my acting career.
No, yeah, it was the Batman Forever,
the Joel Schumacher one with Val Kilmer.
So, seeing all the stuff from the comic books was great.
And it was before the comic book culture was as mainstream as it is now.
What really hit was Elf.
Because Elfmade money, and I was on a list of directors that were hirable.
They approached me about it,
and there was not really a script or anything.
They were working on a script, they had some story ideas.
And I didn't know what I was going to do with it,
but I thought it was a cool concept.
At the time, Transformers was being made.
So, I was real confident that hard surfaces would look good in CG.
I tended to not really always buy CG at the time.
Let's face it. This is not the worst thing you've caught me doing.
I think, potentially, Marvel's rise
coincided with the development of CG, in a way.
I think so.And it was more photo-real
so that comic book geeks could go to the movie theater
and appreciate...You could have a dude fly...
I remember when I was little, it was Superman.
And part of that was that you could show Superman flying in a way
that wasn't like the old TV shows.
So, I always think it's a matching-up of tech with the material.
And then, of course, the big thing was Robert.
Like, getting Robert in
and he's been a really big through-line through the whole journey.
I am Iron Man.
FAVREAU: It carried a lot of us through,
and then also just great casting decisions after that
that were, I think, influenced by the sensibility or tone
of hiring Robert to play Iron Man.
Spider-Man is, like, achingly sincere.
Batman is obviously glum...
But Iron Man, the actual reveal was,
"Oh, he's sincere. He cares now."
Like, when Robert is saying, "I have to do this. This is important,"
'cause he's been so glib, and so good,
and so attractive while he's being terrible,
that when he actually shows his heart, literally while she's pulling his...
FAVREAU: Yes. Right.
WHEDON: For me, that was like,
"Oh, my God. I'm so on board with this guy now."
Was that so hard?
That was fun, right?
Hold on. I got it, I got it, I got it.
Nice.
I had had a lot of training being around animated characters.
So when I came intoGuardians,
I was fortunate to have had that background...
FAVREAU: Sure. ...to deal with Rocket and Groot,
because I had two main characters that were both CGI aliens.
Well, it's a character-first table and I think that that's what...
What we were most impressed with when we saw Iron Man
was the opening 10 minutes of the movie.
That's a ballsy interpretation of a narcissist
who's presented as a drunk and a jerk.
We'll be throwing one of these in
with every purchase of 500 million or more.
To peace.
JOE: And this is the guy that I'm supposed to get on board with...
FAVREAU: Right.
JOE: ...who goes on this amazing journey over the course of the movie
and I do get on board with him.
And I think that that was unique.
If you look back at superhero films,
there's a tendency for the hero or the costume
to outshine the personality of the character.
And this was one of the first times I can remember the character first.
GUNN: Yes.
JOE: And that was enlightening to us
and what excited us about Iron Man.
FAVREAU: And very flawed... The Marvel characters are very flawed, generally.
JOE: Very flawed.
FURY: Sir! I'm going to have to ask you to exit the doughnut.
JOE: And that's what I loved about him as a kid.
And then reading the books... I think a lot of us read the books.
FAVREAU: And it allows you to have arcs, too,
character arcs, which is a big deal.
And that opens you up to the mythic aspect of it,
which I think is really the key of the success here,
just like it is withStar Wars or the movies that have endured,
is you have archetypes and myth.
And I remember when I sawBlack Panther
and there was the scene where they bury him,
and it goes through death and rebirth and all that,
and I was, like, "Oh, Ryan's reading from the old book.
"He's... Now, I'm in," and sure enough... And I was there.
Remember, I was there the night of the premiere with you.
Yeah, I remember seeing you.Most of us were there, actually. Right?
That was kind of nice, too.GUNN: I think we were all there. Yeah.
FAVREAU: Yeah. That was really cool,
to be in the gallery on the balcony with all these guys.
And here was...The rowdy section.
And here was the new guy who was coming out
and here you were and you got up to the plate
and you just caught that ball and sent it over the wall.
And we were all look... Because we all look at each other.
It's one thing when the crowd goes crazy,
but they were all looking over,
and we're all like, "Yeah, all right. All right."
That's crazy.He crushed it.
No, I was in film school,
my first semester in film school when I saw Iron Man.
It's funny that you said Transformerswas happening at the same time,
'cause I can remember that like it was yesterday,
like, the work ILM was doing, you know, like seeing the Transformers,
trying to see Optimus Prime's foot
and seeing all the gears spinning,
and then seeing Iron Man's foot.
There were a few folks that were heavy into comics, you know what I mean?
Like,Iron Man hit a chord with us, like true comic book fann a way,
and I was there, actually, the night that you guys came out to the ArcLight.
FAVREAU: Oh, yeah?COOGLER: Yeah. I was...
FAVREAU: When me and Robert were running around?COOGLER: Yeah, yeah.
Man, like you were all wearing Stark Industries jackets and stuff.
Yes.I was there with my classmates.
Man, I'll never forget that night.
And we jumped in the front of the theater.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.We were going from theater to theater.
We were so happy and relieved and the crowd was so ready for it.
It was nuts, just the energy in there...
Yeah. It was so fun. Yeah, it was.
You know, I'll never forget that.
What lit us so up so much about that movie was
it's a part of our creative process,
we've always run at these opportunities
where you can take two incongruous things
and smash them together.
Because it's just fun to see what happens
on a creative level when you do that.
So you had this moment in time
where the visual effects are taking fantasy to a level
that we've never had before.
While at the same time, on a character level,
you're running hardcore in the opposite direction
to something very real, grounded, relatable, tangible.
FAVREAU: And the irony is that the more focused and specific you make it,
the more universal the appeal seems to be.
Because these are all very specific titles,
and in some cases, starting with real obscure characters.
First off, I'm a big fan.
Appreciate it. So, who the hell are you?
I'm Ant-Man.
"Ant-Man"?What, you haven't heard of me?
I think with Ant-Man, the main thing I love about it is that,
I think of all the MCU stuff,
I always think of Scott Lang as the real everyman,
a guy who does not even...
He may have known that there was this
other world of heroes or heightened individuals,
but it wasn't on his radar.
His concerns are very much just about getting his own life back on track.
And I mean, Rudd is amazing.
I think he's one of those guys who can do drama, comedy, anything.
I ruined the moment, didn't I?Yes, you did. Yes.
I'm gonna make some tea.
CREW MEMBER: We have a special guest that is going to join us here.
FAVREAU: Here it is.[LAUGHTER]
REED: Oh, no.FAVREAU: Hello.
REED: Oh, no, no.WHEDON: This can only end in tears.
REED: No, no, no.How are you, my friend?
Who thought this was a good idea?
So, Taika, since you're here, why don't we talk a little bit about Thor: Ragnarok?
Yeah? How'd you get involved?
I assume that they just scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Then they lifted up the barrel
and looked at all the things that were underneath it,
and they said, "Oh, this guy here, he's desperate."
So, yeah, that's how I assumed it happened.
WHEDON: I want to know how they let you go full Taika
for that entire movie.FAVREAU: True.
I was like... That was so exciting to me
that it just kept just going to the next level.
I think James had something to do with that.
I feel like Guardians...
FAVREAU: He opened the door a little bit. Yeah.
That opened the door to a kind of anarchy
and just extraordinary next-level humor.
A lot of the, sort of, pitch thing that I had was
a lot ofBig Trouble in Little China
and the thing I loved about that film was Jack Burton,
all he wants in that film...
His only thing he wants is to get his truck back.
Something so simple and all this crazy stuff that was going on
and I don't know if you've ever seen this,
someone cobbled together this YouTube video,
all the questions that Jack Burton asked
inBig Trouble in Little China.
And it's five minutes long.
And it's basically every question that the audience is asking,
which is, "Who's that? What is this thing?
"Where are we? What are we doing?
"Where's my truck? I want my truck back. Who's that guy?"
And I thought, "Yeah, with someone who's from outer space,
"you can't really relate to this rich kid Viking,
"and you want him to be asking the questions that you're asking."
And that was one of the main focuses on that film,
was Thor is always on the back foot
asking the questions that we're asking.
Was it weird for you to see how your movie ended
and then how it dovetailed into The Avengersfilm?
It felt like it was almost a direct...JOE: Yeah.
Narratively? Yeah.JOE: It was a direct hand-off.
A direct hand-off to a very different tone.
It felt, really, not to be that involved in something else...
I felt very much like, "Oh, this could be just like a standalone little thing
"that could be deleted really easily, in a way, if I screw this up."
But, then... Yeah,
to have a link to something else afterwards was really...
Between your film, and with Black Panthercoming out so soon before,
I really thought it captured the momentum.
I think that's probably
the most interesting thing about the Marvel Universe
is this grand experiment narrative. It's like a giant mosaic.
Storytelling told by a bunch of different people.
And I think the audience has also gained an ability to understand the language
of how we shift quickly, how there are different voices,
how the tone can shift dramatically,
and they appreciate it because they're constantly being surprised.
I think that's a big part of Marvel's success.
WHEDON: Ragnarok, for me, I loved...
'Cause I read Marvel all the time, since I was nine.
It was like when Gene Colan would take overIron Man for a couple of issues
and for two issues, Iron Man looked like he was made out of smoke
because that's how Gene Colan draws.
And it would just be a very different version of what you love,
but you didn't go, like, "Oh, they've ruined it. It's not Iron Man."
It was exciting to see somebody else's interpretation.
I didn't have a deep comic book knowledge.
You understood it in your bones
and you were able to bring a comic book sensibility to it
that allowed it to open up in scope, in size,
and give it a set of rules that could bear out for the rest of the films.
And then to see you pull all that stuff together and get laughs
and have the characters feel consistent...
And when you're a filmmaker, it's a very personal thing.
You are the steward and the shepherd over this whole thing.
Then you hand it off and then those characters live on
and move through the world without you.
You're an Avenger now.
When he says, "I am Iron Man,"
that was letting go of the idea of secret identities.
Because to have to tell the stories that we have been telling,
while somebody's hiding from Aunt May in the closet...
It's so hard to keep it feeling real.It's hard.
FAVREAU: A lot of that was Kevin, to be honest with you,
like, we came up... He was like, "Yes, we should."
He latched onto that
and he latched very much onto the Nick Fury setup post-credits scene.
So there were certain things that I would tell that he wouldn't back...
That he would hear it or come up with it or say it, and then,
it was something that was clicking for him in the bigger picture.
Oh, I made a joke about,
"We should see them all leaning forward for 30 seconds."
And then, two months later, he's like, "I think we can do it."
I'm like, "Do what?"That was crazy.
By the way, can we talk about that for a second?
So you did a post-credits scene that you filmed,
was it after the premiere even or...
Yes.FAVREAU: It wasn't in the premiere.
REED: That's the legend that they got.FAVREAU: That's crazy!
Yes. It did not go out in Europe because we didn't have time.
It was during... While we were doing press after the premiere at the hotel.
There was a shawarma place, like, three blocks away.
He got everybody in there.
He had to cover... Didn't he have facial hair?
WHEDON: Yep.FAVREAU: It was Chris Evans.
Evans had a beard. So they put, like...
It looked like the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy,
like, giant jaw on him,
and he just sort of hid it like this.
COOGLER: That's also someone I love.
Like, you hear stories about...
It's like, "Y'all gonna work up to the last second."
[ALL LAUGHING]
But it's like a double-edged sword.Yeah.
COOGLER: It's like, yo, anything's possible
that you want to do, maybe if you get a late-in-the-game idea,
but you also are gonna not sleep for four months, you know.
And having Nate is great,
'cause I'm constantly asking, like, "When did you all do this thing?"
He's like, "Oh, man, that was...
"I guess we were two weeks from having the print master."
So, I'm like, "Okay, cool..."
FAVREAU: It's not healthy. It's not healthy.
COOGLER: Yeah, it's not, but at the same time, I feel like we all got those stories
where you throw something crazy out
and then, Kevin is like, "Yeah, we can do that."
[ALL LAUGHING]
I was editing The Break-Up.FAVREAU: Yes.
In which you were an actor.Yes.
And I remember you... I think it...
Probably right around the time
you were starting to prep or develop Iron Man.
Could be.The idea that, as a director,
"Here's something where I want to take this in-the-moment life
"and reflecting real human dynamics, and put it in a fantasy thing."
I really was excited to see what you were going to do with Iron Man.
It was cool because you didn't...
When you do a comedy, people judge your comedy
and ask you to defend jokes or scrutinize it.
Like in Elf,every joke was up for discussion.
But the action sequences for Elf,nobody cared about.
Like, I never got any notes.
And you were very excited about... "That's going to be my domain.
"I can go and do this thing and not be under this comedy radar where..."
I didn't even know that they...
I didn't even think they knew it was going to be funny.
I remember when we first screened it
and Kevin Feige was like, "Whoa, this is pretty funny."
I'm like, "Yeah, it's pretty..."
I think that Marvel has developed into this sort of Trojan horse
where you can come in and tell these stories that are real
and they're heightened stories
and they have their roots in science fiction and comics,
but you can also say a lot about the human condition.
And they're able to sort of walk this line of some drama
that's pretty heavy and intense drama
and then some comedy that's like, I think, kind of cutting-edge comedy
in terms of what's going on in movies.
And it can be subtle.
In all of our films, the comedy was snuck in.
But I think it was with Guardians where it felt like
it could be called a comedy first and foremost.
GUNN: We ran at it.
Dance-off, bro! Me and you!
And then certainly with Ragnarok.
I think Ragnarok is a comedy,
whereas my movie was a really funny space opera.
FAVREAU: Space opera.
Well, but it also had some serious emotion in it, man.
And it's emote drama.
The way you got emotion out of a raccoon
and out of a tree and things like that, that was really heartfelt and genuine.
I remember reading your first outline that you gave us
and it had a picture of a Walkman.
GUNN: Yeah, that was the first.
WHEDON: And at the end of the first paragraph, I was crying.
GUNN: Joss, you were the hugest influence on me
because I turned in my first draft of the screenplay
and I was really afraid, because I felt good about it,
but I actually thought it was too funny.
And the thing that you said to me, which I share all the time,
was, "Just make it more James Gunn."
And I went home and that's when I...
That night, after hearing that, is when I went home and wrote the 12% scene.
[LAUGHING]
That's a fake laugh.
It's real.Totally fake.
That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life,
because that is not a plan.It's barely a concept.
Something that Marvel does that is brilliant,
and it applies to all of us,
is that nobody here necessarily had the resume
to make the next big action film.
They were interested in having that person speak.
They weren't interested in saying, "Look, just hit the marks."
They wanted each one of us to bring ourselves to the movie.
And you can tell, as much as there's a through-line in Marvel,
you can definitely tell who's who
and what they constantly want to talk about.
I got on set and then I realized,
"This is the biggest thing I've ever been on."
And I was like... I had to stop myself from freaking out
and talk to myself and say,
"There's a reason that they've asked you to come here
"and it's obviously not because of your experience in explosions
"and action sequences.
"It's because of a tonal thing." It relaxed me a lot more.
I'd come out to work and I'm like,
"This is my strength. I know my strength now.
"This is why I'm here. To do this stuff
"and to make Chris tell these ridiculous stories
"about all the times that Loki tried to kill him."
He transformed himself into a snake and he knows that I love snakes.
So I went to pick up the snake to admire it
and he transformed back into himself
and he was like, "It's me!" Then he stabbed me.
We were eight at the time.
I remember when I first started talking with Marvel and stuff,
you guys were in post.
And making a film where your lead actor has been cast by somebody else is scary.
You know what I mean? It terrified me.
And I knew Chadwick was crazy talented.
And I didn't know him at the time yet.
And I remember just seeing him
and seeing the decisions that you guys had made,
it went past me like a sigh of relief for me when I made the movie,
but it took me to being a fan again, a kid again,
and feeling like you're in on something.
My generation...
Star Warswas something that had happened before I was born.
So, it's like somebody's dad, you know, if my dad was into Star Wars.
Somebody's dad was like, "Yo, check this out. Harrison Ford is there."
But for me, I know Harrison Ford from The Fugitive.
This is something that he did before I was around.
Like Rocky Balboa. I know Sylvester Stallone from Cliffhanger.
"What's he doing with these boxing gloves on?"
That's what his whole thing is, you know?
That'll be something to tell my kids about,
the first time I saw Chadwick as the Black Panther,
the first time I was in the theater when Robert Downey showed up
and put the Iron Man suit on.
So all those things, you feel a sense of ownership over.
It's something I could never thank you guys enough for,
that you guys were competent enough to know who the guy was, to find him.
It just laid the groundwork.
There was a little bit of Hamletthere.Clearly. Yeah.
But also, we're looking at The Godfather.
And it was crazy because I got a chance to meet Francis.
He watched the film at the ranch while we were still with friends and family.
And I'm just like... I was sick with nerves.[ALL LAUGHING]
FAVREAU: What'd he say?Like, out of my mind, man.
I'm nervous just hearing about it.Yeah.
After the movie was over, he was just talking like this,
he's giving me notes faster than I could write.
He just started naming all of these movies
and all of these books that I needed to go read.
That related to...That related to like, you know, he...
So, what was he calling out? What was he...
COOGLER: Well, he was like, "Have you seen Brigadoon?"
I was like, "No, I've never seen Brigadoon."
He was, like, "Whoa, man, you've got to see Brigadoon
"'cause you've got this thing going on in this."
And he said, "Have you ever read Shahnameh?"
And I'm like, "Shala-what?"
And he's like, "Oh, you've got to read Shahnameh."
It's this Persian story about these kings
who had sons who have to inherit the throne.
And it was a big inspiration for him with Godfather.
And for us, we kind of saw Chadwick's character as Michael
and his father was Don.
And he's got to fill the shoes of this great man
who's also his father.
So he's just rattling off all of this stuff.
And you realize it's like, "Yeah, man, everybody pulls from everything."
They do.
And the writers of the comic books did, too, I'm sure,
because they were churning out so much stuff.
What movies were you all... Were there any touchstone films?
I mean, for me, Rocket is Frankenstein's monster.
FAVREAU: Right.
GUNN: He is this little creature that was this innocent animal
who was turned into something that isn't what he was supposed to be
and is completely alone and completely lost,
and has no connection, has no tenderness from anyone.
To me, that was the seed from which the entire story grew.
JOE: Part of, again, the passing of the baton is,
as storytellers, we look at that and go, "Oh, interesting."
We have somewhere really dynamic to go with this character
who never emotionally connects,'cause it's not part of his DNA.
What happens if you put him with this incredible sad sack
who's lost everything in his life
and has no other choice but to win or die?
I assume you're the captain, sir?
You're very perceptive.
You seem like a noble leader.
Will you join me on my quest to Nidavellir?
Let me just ask the captain.
Oh, wait a second, it's me.
Yeah, I'll go.Wonderful.
We needed to create a situation where you really believe
that Thor was going to kill Thanos.
That was the story of the film, his journey to that.
And it's like that extreme level of suffering
that that character has gone through,
beginning at the end of Thor: Ragnarok,
and then carrying into the beginning of Infinity War,
where this guy has just lost everything.
And it's that level of sadness that imbues him with that underdog quality
that then becomes the heart of the movie and you start to root for.
And you believe the energy that's going to carry you into the climax.
So, that pairing, I think, was very interesting on that level
because they sort of share that DNA.
So, dead brother, huh? Yeah, that can be annoying.
Well, he's been dead before.
There's a belief out there thatsomehow, over the past however many years,
we sat in a room and we came up with this long big story
that all leads to this one thing, and it's just not the way it is.
FAVREAU: It's not, but it...It's much more like what you say.
FAVREAU: But it kind of is in a weird way, and a lot of it's Kevin. Right?
COOGLER: Yeah.
FAVREAU: All kidding aside, I mean, there was...
Yeah.He's a constant.
There was a map on the wall behind Tony Stark and Nick Fury
at the end ofIron Man 2 that had Wakanda on it,
and all those things that I always thought
were just Easter eggs and fun for the fans,
but he must have been keeping his journal and having the through-line of one person
that really would come in and not just be an executive,
but actually have a creative point of view that you could go back-and-forth on.
And it wasn't always top-down, "You must do this,"
but there were things he would question.
There were things that he would push on.
And I think part of that creates consistency
of at least knowing what everybody else was up to.
And then, I think, you all took it to the next level
where you all were, especially, I think,
now more so than ever, on the newAvengers films,
where you were very involved, right?
It was like an open-door kind of thing.
I would drop by and see you guys at different points.
And you guys would come in while we were in production design meetings.
I remember that was a couple days there.
I remember when we came over to see you, by the way.
You were shooting and Taika was shooting at the same time, and you were both...
You were building a whole universe
and he was completely re-toning while we were shooting.
So we were trying to absorb information from both of you
in a way that I think is...
Again, we've all... I think we've all made standalone stories as unique.
What's fascinating about Marvel is the new form of storytelling.
It is this giant band of people playing
and passing instruments around and trading licks
and we're trying different things with tone
and different things with humor, drama, thematics...
On a very big cultural canvas
in a way that has never been done before.
And I remember when we came over to see you,
we spent two hours with you and your creative team.
And you guys were just pitching out the vision.
I remember we walked out of there and I went,
"He is building to the level of detail of a universe."
That's crazy, by the way. Let's just take a minute.
It's interesting because, in a way, yes, you inherited the character,
but most of us, we inherit the world and build a new character.
You inherited a character and built the world
and also a villain that got all the attention
that any hero would get.
And a completely fleshed-out set of motivations and backstory.
And then that world, when it opened up and peeled back, it was fully formed.
It felt completely consistent.
And then, by the way, when I saw that Wakanda in your film,
I didn't feel the differentiation.
When we did the post-credits scene for Thor onIron Man 2,
that was shot by Branagh. I didn't do that sequence.
And so, it felt like part of Branagh's film.
But what's happening now is all the Guardiansstuff
felt completely consistent.
I think that these guys have got a good sense of
what those characters were.
I didn't ever have an ending for what Guardians 2 was supposed to be.
I didn't have a single story point that was ever discussed with Marvel
before I wrote the story.
So where that movie ends up, with Nebula going off and doing her thing,
that's what I mean by, people, we kind of do our own little thing.
We write our own little story and then it goes off to these guys.
And I gave these guys a script very, very early on.
And they said...
For Guardians...Okay.For 2.
And they were like, "That's perfect,
"because that works great for us with where Nebula is,
"what we want to do with the story." And it goes off.
And I think that is the fluid nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It's that moving from story to story,
letting a Russo brothers movie be a Russo brothers movie.
Letting a Ryan movie be a Ryan movie.
Letting a Peyton movie be a Peyton movie.
But still being true to the nature of those different characters
and paying heed to what came before.
Because you do have to respect what happened before you.
We've had this whole dance with Ant-Man,too.
Because we did Ant-Man,
I remember when we were in post
and you guys, I assume, were writing and developing Civil War,
and I remember showing you stuff that we had done
for when Rudd's breaking in and seeing the suit and stuff
just to get an idea of how he was playing Scott Lang...
Nice.
REED: ...knowing he was going to be worked into Civil War in some way.
Oh, this is awesome. Captain America. I know you, too. You're great.
REED: And then, of course, you just came across...
"Wait, are we supposed to be getting a Giant-Man reveal?
"Wait, wait, hold on. Let's discuss this thing, man."
And at a point, I think, maybe Wasp was even going to be in at one point.
She was.Yeah, early on.
She was also going to be in Avengersat one point.
REED: That's right, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, I wrote, like, a whole draft. Wakanda was going to be in Ultron.
And then we kept, like, "Well, it's at the gates. It's by the..."
And then we started referring to it as "Wakinda."
And then, finally, we were like, "Let's just wait on this one."
Well, you start to figure out, like, how much can this one movie contain.
I don't think these guys asked that question last time.
The fact that you took all of those worlds and people
and made it all matter and made it all flow.
ANTHONY: There's something terrifying about it when you look at it at first.
But therein lies the opportunity,
because you know you have to go somewhere where you weren't expecting
and that you don't have a lot of road-map for.
And that's the fun of it.
JOE: And what's amazing about it, and this is unique, again, is
it is a united artist
and everybody's standing on everybody else's shoulders.
What Marvel has done is hired a group of very passionate people.
And we're passing off challenging concepts.
Like, you were talking about,
you receive things in a way where you go, "Oh, that's amazing.
"We can do something with that. That's really incredible."
And it's a different form of having, for 20 years,
told linear, close-ended stories... This is exciting to us.
Ant-Man and the Wasp, when we were talking about doing a next Ant-Man,
when you have every possibility there, that's really daunting.
But what happened in Civil War
gave us a really natural, organic starting-off point.
It really suggested, like,
"What are the ramifications of Scott Lang going off and taking that technology
"and exposing it to the Avengers, and particularly to Tony Stark?
"That's Hank Pym's worst nightmare. How's he going to react to that?"
And that instantly gave us, like, "Oh, okay.
"Maybe these characters are going to be fractured at the beginning of this movie."
It really gave us a really organic starting-off point to do this movie
that is a story, a standalone story,
that fits very squarely in the timeline in ways that the audience will discover.
For me, so much of the center of the Marvel Universe
has to do with the space between Avengers and Winter Soldier.
Because Avengers,to me, is the ultimate comic book movie.
Like, I went to that movie and I would go,
"This was what was in my brain when I was 11 and readingAvengers comics.
"That was better than what the comics were.
"This is the ultimate superhero movie ever."
And thenWinter Soldier came along and said,
"It's not really a superhero movie.
"It's kind of a 1970s paranoia thriller."
FAVREAU: Well, I think that's the trick.
And going into making genre films...That's right.
...is what has been... Different genre films.
I also think you guys defined
not just the costume, but Cap, for people, I think.
I think First Avenger is great. I really enjoy that movie.
I enjoyed working on it and, obviously,
I loved working with him, working with that character.
But I feel like Winter Soldieris when
he got locked in and became sort of the heart of...
If Tony's the head, Cap is the heart, and in a way that he hadn't been before.
And I also think, yeah, going to genre, grounding it,
having action set-pieces that are tons of practical,
but mapped out really beautifully.
Because there can be... If you're doing a giant space-epic,
there can be a moment where you're like,
"Just throw your arms about and we'll add some CG people that you're punching."
Like, you can do the vague version.
Try not to do it as often as possible, but you can.
AndWinter Soldier had that extraordinary,
exciting, down-to-the-ground kind of action.
Engine room secure.
The biggest fear for us was to make something that was frivolous.
That was my biggest fear.
The theme of identity, as it relates to culture,
should be something that is at the heart of it.
There was also this idea of nationalism. "Am I my brother's keeper?
"Is it my duty to just take care of my own,
"or do I have a responsibility to people over there?"
And it was about Wakanda's answer to that question.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" being, "No."
And then going on the journey to it becoming, "Yes."
So that's what we were aiming at.
We didn't know if we were going to connect with it,
but every day we were aiming at it.
And fortunately, when we pitched these themes,
Kevin, Lou and Victoria and Nate,
they were like, "Yeah, let's go. Let's do it."
GUNN: So much of the secret has to do with Marvel Comics.
I mean, it really is what Marvel Comics always did.
They had these stories with characters that continued from one story to the next.
They were all very different, individual stories
that somehow were all part of the Marvel Universe.
So, in one way, there's nothing new about any of this.
It's just taking what were comic books and putting them into movie form.
And like you said so clearly, it just so happened that
when Iron Manstarted, it was a movie that somehow
finally had caught up with technology,
so that we could watch a superhero film
and it could be like what we imagined when we were reading comic books.
I'm just incredibly grateful.
Iron Manwould have been a little chapter,
like a little footnote in history,
but because of all the work everybody's done,
and each film sort of builds upon the other ones that came before it,
it's still relevant now through the voices of everybody here
who has worked on it and others who aren't here
and the people at Marvel and Kevin.
JOE: I think it's interesting that all of us, I think,
showed up at the moment that we needed to show up in the Marvel Universe.
You kind of go back and look at it,
that everyone played a part, in a way, that built this mosaic
and in a way that's completely unpredictable.
And I don't know of any other way it could have been built.
[ROARING]
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]
[SHUDDERS][ALL LAUGHING]
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
Because you're worth it.
[GRUNTS][BLEEPING]
[GRUNTS] Ohh!
Rolling.
I'm Doctor... Ugh... I'm Doctor I-Can't-Walk at the moment.
Yep.I'm in.
Yeah?[LAUGHING]
Flying about 80 miles an hour. Just a big chocolate missile.
Hey, Russo, you want me to go Jamie Foxx on this one?
Oh... [BLEEP]
Everybody put on your sunglasses. Denzel's coming out.
I'm going full Cheadle on this take.
JOE: Oh. [BLEEP] Don't give 'em full Cheadle.
Full Cheadle.
I know you have found something.[GOAT BLEATING]
A sense of peace.[GOAT BLEATING LOUDLY]
[LAUGHING]
Okay, now you are going too far now.
[GOAT BLEATING][ALL LAUGHING]
We don't trade lives, Captain.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
I told you to go.
[BOTH PANTING]
[BOTH LAUGH]
We need to destroy... [BLEEP] you, Ruffalo. [LAUGHS]
How long do I stand here overacting for?
Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, my God. This is going to be some bad acting now.
Supercalifragilisticexpiali- nano.RUFFALO: ...expiali-dada.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
Hold on. There's a fly.
[LAUGHS]God [BLEEP] bugs!
Who are you guys?
[ALL LAUGHING]
Why was she up there all this time... [BLEEP]
[IMITATES RUMBLING]
Was that good?[CREW LAUGHING]
Mr. Stark.
Captain.
KEVIN FEIGE: There is just something awesome about seeing these
different franchise heroes interacting with each other for the first time.
BANNER: Who are you?Natasha Romanoff.
The notion of seeing characters who you've grown to love in their own movies
walking into another movie for the first time,
there is just something that is satisfying.
[ROARING]
We haven't really seen that since the firstAvengers.
Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced some new characters
within the body of that film.
Captain America: Civil Warintroduced Black Panther and Spider-Man.
Hey, everyone.
And then, here we are years later...
[WAKANDANS CHANTING IN XHOSA]
...doing Infinity War.
[ALL EXCLAIM]
ROCKET: Wipers! Wipers!
Get it off.
[ALL GASP]
How the hell is this dude still alive?
He is not a dude.
You're a dude.
This... This is a man.
A handsome, muscular man.
I'm muscular.
We're doing something the fans have wanted from day one.
Who the hell are you guys?
Ever since the very beginning of getting the job as Drax in Guardians,
I was really wishing that the worlds would collide.
We like to combine things that don't seem like they belong together.
I feel your pain.
I feel your pain as well.
JOE: The exciting aspect of the film
is that we're gonna take all of these characters
from different franchises in the Marvel Universe
and we're gonna put them together.
Tony Stark.
I'm Doctor Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.
I'm sorry, you giving out tickets to something?
The "Strange Alchemy" is a phrase that we came up with in the writers' room.
"Which characters can we put together that audiences are excited to see?"
What is your job exactly? Besides making balloon animals.
Protecting your reality.
"How do you combine all these different tones, all these different characters,
"and how do we balance it?"
What exactly is it that they do?
Kick names, take ass.
Yeah, that's right.
JOE: That's gonna create the most spark
because conflict between heroes can be entertaining.
What are you doing?Taking your pod.
[PETER CLEARS THROAT]
[IN DEEP VOICE] No, you're not.
You will not be taking our pod today, sir.
Are you making your voice deeper?
We had the opportunity to bring all of the Marvel Universe
practically together.
RHODES: You guys...
really look like crap.
TRAN: I think those small little character moments
are what makes Marvel movies so special.
[GROWLS]Where's your guy?
[GRUNTING]
Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizard.
T'CHALLA: Today, we don't fight for one life,
we fight for all of them.
JOE: So, the greatest test that these characters will ever face,
they can barely face it together.
DR. STRANGE: We're in the endgame now.
We are embarking on something
that is much bigger than we've ever embarked on before.
Where's the fight?
On its way.
It's a collaborative thing where you've got
that many people pooling their talent together.
That's really something to enjoy.
I am Spider-Man.Dr. Strange.
There was sort of a camaraderie between us.
They all make each other better in the scenes.
PETER: Who are you?
We're the Avengers, man.
THANOS: The end is near.
There's never been anything like this.
Ready?
Let's go.
FEIGE: It's fun putting people
who have no business being on the same planet together...
This is a friend of mine.[GRUNTING]
...much less, the same room together.
I am Groot.
I am Steve Rogers.
FEIGE: The amount of actors in this film is staggering.
How much for the gun?Not for sale.
Okay. How much for the arm?
Just look around. It's like, "Oh, wow.
"There's all this potential."
Thank you for standing with us.
Everybody knows this has all been leading to something. Well, this is it.
[SHOUTS IN XHOSA]
Everybody wants the characters uniting for a big battle.
PROXIMA MIDNIGHT: You'll die alone.
BLACK WIDOW: She's not alone.
That's why we make these movies.
That, to us, is the fun.
You're an Avenger now.
Wakanda forever!
GAMORA: The entire time I knew him, he only ever had one goal.
To bring balance to the universe
by wiping out half of all life.
He kills people planet by planet,
massacre by massacre.
Tell me his name again.
Thanos.
Thanos has been lurking in the shadows of our universe
sinceAvengers one.
We see a glimpse of him inGuardians of the Galaxy.
I will bathe the star ways in your blood.
FEIGE: We see a tiny glimpse of him at the end ofAge of Ultron.
He has had his hand
in every action that has occurred on a grand level in the MCU,
all surrounding his desire to obtain these Infinity Stones.
Someone has been playing an intricate game and has made pawns of us.
GAMORA: If he gets all the Infinity Stones,
he can wipe out half the universe
with the snap of his fingers.
Just like that.
The Stones are spread out throughout the franchises.
We're building every one of them into this epic, colossal event.
STARK: So, this is it?
It's all been leading to this.
Josh Brolin is bringing a new iconic villain to life.
Thanos is a very complex character.
What he's doing, from his point of view, is a very positive thing.
He's basically an eco-terrorist,
and he wants to eliminate 50% of the universe to save the other 50%.
We wanted to tell a story about a character
with a really complex and empathetic interior life.
And there's not a lot of actors that can give you both of those things.
D'ESPOSITO: Josh Brolin brings a reality to the character.
He's wearing that mocap suit, he's wearing motion capture cameras.
The performance is coming through,
not only in his gestures, in his face, but in his eyes.
VICTORIA ALONSO: There's about 2,900 visual effects shots in the movie.
We wanted to make it as photographic as possible.
And I think that that's the most important part.
[SCREAMING]
Oh, my God.
MANTIS: What happened?
GAMORA: Death follows him like a shadow.
That's who Thanos is.
You seem to know a great deal about Thanos.
Gamora is the daughter of Thanos.
Infinity Warreveals this whole new world
that Nebula and Gamora have been running away from for years.
GAMORA: Nebula!
THANOS: Some time ago, your sister snuck aboard this ship to kill me.
So I brought her here.
To talk.
His relationship with Gamora, it's quite emotional.
[SCREAMING]
I ignored my destiny once.
I cannot do that again.
Even for you.
D'ESPOSITO: What makes Thanos so great is his conviction.
This is the only solution.
He's seen it firsthand on his planet.
THANOS: Titan was like most planets.
And when we faced extinction, I offered a solution.
Genocide.
What I predicted came to pass.
Congratulations, you're a prophet.
I'm a survivor.
Tony knows just by the way that Bruce Banner describes Thanos,
it's a different game now.
BANNER: He sent Loki.
The attack on New York, that's him.
He has the biggest army in the universe, and he is not gonna stop.
Just his sheer force is something
that none of the Avengers has ever encountered before.
Thanos has been inside my head for six years.
So I say we take the fight to him.
JOE: Heroes are only as good as their villain,
but if the Avengers were built for anything,
it's for stopping Thanos from completing his goal.
THANOS: Fun really isn't something one considers when balancing the universe,
but this does put a smile on my face.
Oh, man.
[GRUNTS]
Thanos is the greatest villain
in the history of Marvel Cinematic Universe.
[SCREAMS]
The hardest choices require the strongest wills.
I think you'll find our will equal to yours.
[SCREAMS]
Imagine if our heroes all lost.
You should have gone for the head.
No!
The Marvel Cinematic Universe will never be the same.
Oh, God.
He did it.
What did it cost?
Everything.
Avengers 3is by far and away the most intense of all three films.
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
Part of the reason why we were drawn to tell the story of Civil War
and one of the reasons why we thought
it was such a great place to leave the Avengers divided
was because we knew the greatest threat they would ever face
would be coming in Thanos.
For storytellers, you want your heroes to be at their lowest point
when they meet their worst threat.
The hardest choices require the strongest wills.
I think you'll find our will equal to yours.
JOE: This film was taking all the characters
from all the different franchises
and putting them together in one movie for the first time.
It's about as massive a production as you could mount.
We need a plan. If all we come at him with is plucky attitude...
Don't call us plucky.
We don't know what it means.
We were in production all year on Infinity War.
It's the largest global shoot we've ever had.
Joe and Anthony have the stamina to do two films, back-to-back.
It's very difficult.
Moving on to a clean pass.Okay, back to the other set.
Something this big isn't daunting to them.
And they're the perfect combination of structure and freedom.
Do what you want to do on this first take,
and then we'll start to tweak it from there.
The Russos elevated the franchise, even past its inception.
Who are you guys?
[ALL LAUGHING]
Sorry.
We spent a lot of time with Joe and Anthony, Markus and McFeely
creating storylines that really allow these characters their moments.
Action!
If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony...
He could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of.
Did you seriously just say "hitherto undreamt of"?
You really look at how all the characters interweave
into the main arc.
ANTHONY: The connective tissue that pulls our entire MCU together
is the fact that the Stones are spread out throughout the franchises.
JOE: The exciting aspect of the film is that
we're going to take all of these characters
from different franchises in the Marvel Universe
and we're going to put them together to stop Thanos from completing his goal.
It takes months to plan sequences like Titan.
Titan, we shot that exclusively on a sound stage.
DAN DELEEUW: Beautiful set built by Charlie Wood,
our production designer.
There's green screen in the background.
All that extension will be from plates that we went to Chile and shot.
VICTORIA ALONSO: This entire movie is one big CG scene.
The environment is CG, the weapons are CG,
every shot is dense in layers.
We were pushing colors in both locations,
more green and yellows in Wakanda,
and more orange hues and red hues in Titan,
so that we could distinguish the two as you're intercutting them.
It was a constant challenge to see, how do we keep this photographic enough?
We wanted to have that apocalyptic look
that both Joe and Anthony wanted.
That it was the end of an era.
Heroes are only as good as their villain.
And we spent a lot of time and energy on this one
making sure that Thanos was the most intense and the best villain
that the Marvel Universe has seen.
We had had an initial meeting, me and the Russos,
and it was incredibly helpful.
I felt like they cared deeply.
MATT AITKEN: Thanos is entirely digital,
so we have Josh Brolin performing him on stage.
SWEN GILLBERG: We record all the positions of all their joints,
and we record their motion.
We've dotted up his face, and basically those two cameras give us
a three-dimensional solid of his face in very fine detail.
The performance is coming through,
not only in his gestures and in his face, but in his eyes.
You're much more of a Thanos.
I take it the Maw is dead.
This day extracts a heavy toll.
The battle between Thanos and Dr. Strange,
that was all previz.
And the way we work through that
is probably that sequence was twice as long as it ended up in the movie,
so we shrunk it.
Once we agree on what that sequence is,
the only element that is missing from a sequence like that
is Benedict Cumberbatch.
We'll then go shoot Benedict Cumberbatch,
but everything else is already turned over to the VFX vendors,
so they can get to work on Thanos' side of it
and everything else around Dr. Strange.
You're full of tricks, wizard.
Action sequences are very difficult.
[GRUNTS]
Every action sequence is used to illuminate character,
who the character is, what they're made of.
You never once used your greatest weapon.
[STRAINING]
A fake.
Those battles usually start with either the stunt team or the VFX team.
Yes, sir!
We owe it to Sam Hargrave to create these amazing stunts for Titan.
We got a room full of movie stars.
We've got three franchise-carrying actors here.
This is our first day.
Here we are in Pinewood in Atlanta, and it's actually pretty unbelievable.
You can actually engage in this collaborative, creative conversation
about what should this look like.
We would show them our previz material
just to let them know, like, these are the certain things
that you would be working with to get to this final product.
It's going to look awesome when Chris does it.
[ALL CHUCKLE]
JOE: Every character, every hero involved
has to use the highest level of their power
just to stay on the battlefield with him.
The big two. Thanos versus Iron Man. This is the showdown.
This is what it's all about.
This is what the whole movie's leading up to right here.
We've got Robert Downey, Jr., Josh Brolin,
going hand-to-hand, right here!
THANOS: Stark.
How do you know my name?
I know your soul.
It is much like mine, cursed with knowledge.
My only curse is you.
Iron Man has been battling for six years now
the shadow of Thanos.
He has been waiting for this moment.
[PANTING]
All that for a drop of blood.
[GASPS]
We knew we were going to a place in the story
that audiences wouldn't expect.
And then I drive him back like this,
pin him down like that...
Yes or no?Yeah, I like it.
It was our intent in this movie to play against your expectations.
MAN: Action!
[GROANING]
You have my respect, Stark.
When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive.
[GROANS]
The movie sort of keeps twisting at the end there
in ways that you can't believe that it's going one step beyond,
and that the fate of our characters
and the fate of the universe are still at play.
Mr. Stark? I don't feel so good.
Peter Parker uses all of the strength that he has as a hero
to fight against disappearing.
You're all right. You're all right.
JOE: It allows him to last longer than some of the others.
The emotional experience that the characters are going through
as they experience that is where the power lies.
Please, I don't want to go. I don't want to go.
DOWNEY JR.: The Russos realized how you had to bring it to the next level
and also have it have a great surprise.
[SOFTLY] I'm sorry.
D'ESPOSITO: Never seen our Avengers really lose,
and they lost, and it's quite emotional to see that.
Where is he?
McFEELY: It's a big, epic movie,
and stakes are high, with characters that, hopefully,
because since 2008 you started to love these people,
you really care about.
And that's the grand experiment.
Did we just lose?
Rarely, especially in Avengers 3,
do commercial movies go to the place that this film goes to.
Quill?
Oh, man.
Why would you do that?
DR. STRANGE: We're in the endgame now.
You murdered half the planet.
A small price to pay for salvation.
JOE RUSSO: The level of ambition withAvengers 3 is unprecedented.
But that was the reason that we wanted to do it.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: Infinity War is nuts.
The difficulty in executing it was so well thought out.
A lot of things have to kind of fit into place,
and that's just a tricky target to hit.
This is D-Day, man.
People don't understand what they're walking into with this movie.
This is not going to end well for a lot of people.
KAREN GILLAN: The stakes are very high,
and we are going to say goodbye to people.
The whole thing is just gigantic.
Through the experience of working with Markus and McFeely on Civil War,
we knew that there was a culmination coming.
But how do you combine all these different tones,
all these different characters?
And I think the way we end up balancing it
is we always try to ground it in an emotional truth for the character.
If we take out the stone...
there's still a whole lot of Vision left.
Perhaps the best parts.
Can we do that?
Not me, not here.
I know somewhere.
It felt like there's a lot of substance
behind them coming to Wakanda.
We've seen Wakanda as a powerful nation,
but we've also seen it have to battle with itself.
And so being a part of this major moment for the Avengers,
it felt like very significant storylines merging.
ROGERS: Seems like I'm always thanking you for something.
I think the men really respect each other and have similar moral compasses,
and are eager to be there when the other person's in need.
He just happens to have a whole army.
Where's the fight?
On its way.
For our 19th movie, ten years in the making,
the Russo brothers really wanted to create this big, epic battle
that was worth the biggest, baddest villain and his army.
Probably the most physically challenging thing that we've ever done
was execute that Wakanda sequence.
The scope is gigantic on this movie,
and it's the largest battle that we've ever done.
Thank you for standing with us.
[SPEAKS XHOSA]
[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]
We shot Wakanda in a practical location. It was a big ranch in Georgia
that we transformed into the fields of Wakanda.
DAN DeLEEUW: Working with the Russo brothers,
the main theme is, they want to keep everything grounded.
So art department's gone in and basically built a river
and has dressed in a lot of trees that are more indigenous to Africa.
Charlie Wood and his art department actually carved an artificial river
through the center of this field,
and we had a gigantic pump that could do like 30,000 gallons a minute.
It was very elaborate.
We want the scope to be huge.
So what we're doing is, we're using a set as the center of the war scene,
and then anything you see off in the distance we're actually replacing
with plates and textures from Africa itself.
We actually had to work in tandem with Ryan Coogler.
He and his team had maps of Wakanda. That was very helpful to us,
so that we could look at where we wanted to place the battle,
understand strategy.
So it's literally like doing a Jenga puzzle.
[CHANTING IN XHOSA]
The way the Russos work, they're willing to try different things.
There was a lot of input, and we could share how we would express ourselves,
what war cries we use as Wakandans.
We have another one that's more aggressive
Okay, what's that one?
It's mie effa, which means "win them."
Sie effameans "separate them."
And they just go... [GRUNTING]
You get the actors involved,
and of course they know their characters better than anybody.
They have great input.
When you say it, it's the greatest
"Wakanda forever" you've ever said,
because this could be it.
You know, it became sort of the cadence of the whole set.
People walking around saying, "Wakanda forever!"
Wakanda forever!
[ALL SHOUTING]
We're gonna clash the Wakandan army with the Outriders.
Where good meets evil, and they battle.
It was really amazing to see the vastness of the battlefield.
It made sense that this is the sort of battle that could end the universe.
You definitely kind of catch yourself looking around
and you have goosebumps.
We've got the Wakandan army,
so we have 70 extras here on set, and then stunt people.
We'll do digital versions of those, so we can create the art for those 70
to take them out to about 500.
Then we've got the Outriders, which are Thanos' beasts.
There's 10,000 of those.
[SNARLING]
VICTORIA ALONSO: There was a lot of thinking into the texture,
what they felt like, what they looked like, what the teeth looked like.
They had to pose a real threat.
[GRUNTS]
[ALIENS YELPING]
Why was she up there all this time?
A lot of our action is based around character decisions and moments.
Less punch/jab/cross/uppercut,
but it's more of the things
of, "What are you going to remember about the character?"
Combination attacks working together.
That's our goal, it's to give you moments and less choreography.
One of avorite moments is when Proxima tells Scarlet Witch...
He'll die alone. As will you.
She's not alone.
In a real, real moment of threat,
there's two other women there, standing by each other.
[YELLING][ALL GRUNTING]
It's really great to see that the audiences are embracing
really strong female superheroines.
That is one of the biggest cheer moments in the film.
[YELLS]
Coming into Infinity War, admittedly I was a little hesitant
because I just was so protective of what myself and Taika sort of built.
And I said, "Well, you know, it's not the old Thor anymore,"
and Joe said, "No, no, we know."
And Anthony said, "Yeah, we get it,
"but we've got something different in mind as well."
And they were right. They had a whole new version of it,
and one that was equally as enjoyable as that last Thor film.
New haircut?
Notice you've copied my beard.
Pretty good.
Evans was a bit off, but I think mine sounds good.
[LAUGHTER]
In Atlanta, you get days like this, which are amazing,
that just resonate what we're trying to get with Africa.
And other days you'll get the rain.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]MAN: Oh, God.
ALONSO: We had a lot of different weather issues.
We had rain, sun, fog, cold, heat. We had it all.
TRAN: The weather was one of the biggest challenges,
because it would just be pouring and there would be mud just sliding down
as we're trying to get our talent up to the field.
And it was incredible.
DeLEEUW: We do the best we can.
We try to cover actors for close-ups and shoot the close-ups,
and then hopefully the next day we get a shot, you know, a day without rain.
TRAN: So when Thanos shows up,
we really wanted to make this the most powerful moment ever.
Eyes up, stay sharp.
The movie sort of keeps twisting at the end there
in ways that you can't believe that it's going one step beyond,
and that the fate of our characters
and the fate of the universe are still at play.
[SCREAMS]
In terms of our choices
about who Thanos would end up eradicating with his snap,
it was very story focused.
How do we pay off each individual character's storyline most profoundly?
Steve?
The first person to go is Bucky Barnes,
and it's shot from Captain America's perspective.
You know, we're watching Cap go through the experience of watching him go away.
We're watching Okoye, whose number one mission it is
in life is to protect the king.
She watches the king go in front of her.
And to see those characters react in those situations
is very powerful and resonant.
Groot! No.
Oh, God.
The blip-out sequence, we had gathered the whole entire talent there
circled around our directors,
and basically revealed to them that morning of,
when they came on set, that that scene was happening,
that some of them were going to be, you know, disappearing.
The audience is so good at predicting stories
that even just the smallest clue
can tell them where the film is going to go.
So we worked really hard to make sure
that none of the secrets of the film leaked.
TRAN: This, by far, has been the most top-secret movie
out of all of the previous 18 movies.
Did you do it?
Yes.
It's about as massive a production as you can mount.
6,000 crew members working on the movie, spread all over the world.
This was so brutally massive as a movie.
There's almost 3,000 shots in the film,
and there's about 2,900 visual effects shots.
So it's a puzzle. It's a difficult one.
No one has ever assembled a cast of this size and this caliber.
So it was a completely unique filmmaking experience for everybody involved.
FEIGE: Of all the films we've made,
Infinity War will have the greatest repercussions.
And, really, the only way this film could be made
is in the hands of Anthony and Joe Russo.
This production, it has been a daunting task.
But we always knew that they're the people for the job.
I can't imagine trying to tackle such a huge task.
But I had a lot of faith, not in just Kevin Feige and the people of Marvel,
but the Russos. They're batting a thousand in my opinion.
We thought on Civil War that we had 12 big cast members.
How are we going to deal with all these characters?
Compared to this movie, with over 30 cast.
But the Russos prove themselves,
and they're able to integrate all these characters together
in a seamless manner.
The energy's perfect.Yeah, right?
Besides being incredibly smart,
the Russos are very trusting and they are very kind to the crew.
ANTHONY: Okay, everybody give it up for Geoff Haley!
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Joe and Anthony want to create a relationship as quickly as possible,
and that's what people respond to.
Last weekend were the Taurus World Stunt Awards,
and the team from Civil War did very well.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
The Russo brothers have brought some
extraordinary precision and complexity to the Marvel Universe.
They are extraordinary technicians.
They are making the biggest movie of all time,
with the biggest movie of all time right after it.
We've had a very strong collaboration
with Markus and McFeely over all four movies.
ANTHONY: It's a very organic process.
We sit there and we grab a character and we start to tell a story.
We love this work so much that we want real fidelity
to what it is that we think and believe about these characters,
and we really want that to translate.
I think, when you get to the end of these films,
you'll understand our point of view on life
and our point of view as filmmakers.
So making these movies,
it's been a very personal journey for us.
STARK: Slow down.PEPPER: Honey.
STARK: Slow down, slow down. I'll spell it out for you.
PEPPER: You're totally rambling.No, I'm not.
PEPPER: You lost me.
Look, you know how you're having a dream,
and in the dream you gotta pee.
Yeah.Okay.
And then, you're like, "Oh, my God! There's no bathrooms.
"What am I gonna do? Oh, someone's watching..."
Right. And then you wake up,
and in real life, you actually have to pee.
Yes.Yeah.
Okay.Everybody has that.
Right, that's the point I'm trying to make.
Apropos of that, last night I dreamt we had a kid.
It was so real.
We named him after your eccentric uncle. Uh, what was his name?
Right.Morgan! Morgan.
So you woke up...Naturally.
...and thought that we were...
Expecting.Yeah.
Yes?No.
Please? Maybe?
We don't even have a wedding date yet.
You set August 27th...That's the decoy date.
So we have to get married before that date?
Yes. No, after that date.
You know, you two should just elope.
Because this media circus that's going on is driving me crazy.
Okay.This is me on edge.
STARK: I'm sorry.Because I'm trying to keep
all the pictures out of the paper and off the Internet
so your wedding's not ruined.
No one's working harder than you.
Do you remember that kid from TMZ
that you had me trade paint with on the FDR Drive?
Well, I got a case against me now.
STARK: That's my fault?Yeah, it's your fault.
"Lose 'em, Hap. Lose 'em, Hap," like The Godfather.
It's really funny. Now I gotta go to court.
That's why we want you to get out of the car
and just de-stress, just walk with us.
Burt! I see you, Burt.
Hold on.
Burt, you son of a bitch.
Come here, Burt! Come here.
Man, we gotta get him a girlfriend.
You know anyone? Anyone come to mind who would maybe...
What?
That blade severed my vibranium tissue.
[BOTH PANTING]
Is that even possible?
It isn't supposed to be.
I don't know why.It's all right.
I'm beginning to think we should've stayed in bed.
[LOUD CLANGING]
Vis!
[SCREECHES]
[LOW GRUNTING]
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
[GRUNTING]
Record message.
[MUSIC STOPS]
Turn it back on!
DRAX: No.
Turn it back on.
Can't keep listening to the same song again and again and again!
I told you. I'm screwed up, man.
I gotta get back in the groove.
Specifically the New York Groove.
Give me my Zune.No.
Give me the Zune.No.
Give it!
The man who sings this song is a degenerate.
I will not sit here and allow you to malign Ace Frehley!
Give me the Zune.No.
[SOFT BLEEPING]
Ace Frehley is not helping!
We haven't even left Knowhere yet.
[GRUNTS]
Ace Frehley is helping more than you are.
We lost Gamora because of you.
We lost Gamora because you would not let me seize the moment!
What do you care? You tried to kill her!
She said I'd be saving the universe!
MANTIS: I would kill either of you
if it would stop that blinking yellow light.
PETER: What blinking yellow light?
The coded message channel? How long has this been on?
MANTIS: It was so beautiful.
Wait.
Mantis, a blinking yellow light
indicates an important secret coded message.
DRAX: Shame on you, Mantis.How long...
This was your job.
It was his job.
Drax, you didn't see the blinking yellow light?
I did. But you said if it was yellow, "Let it mellow.
"Brown, flush it down." Those were your orders.
I wasn't talking about the coded message channel.
Twenty-two important coded secret messages.
That could have been helpful.
Five hours. I've been sitting five hours.
We have twenty-two messages.
[BLEEPS]Twenty-three messages.
Oh, they keep coming in.
From Nebula. Gamora is alive!
"Thanos is taking her to Titan.
"Why aren't you responding?"
Why aren't you responding?
"Are you getting my important coded secret messages?"
Ship coordinates.
All right. Let me get my map. Here we go.
Titan.
Yeah.
Wait. How do we know this isn't a trap?
Are we sure that's from Nebula?
"Tell Quill not to lose my sister a second time,
"or I will sew his face to his genitals."
That's her.
She's always wanted to sew my face to my genitals.
We're going to Titan.
GAMORA: The planet has been taken, Father.
The Theradite King pledges eternal loyalty to your cause.
He accepted my terms?
Eventually.
THANOS: Well done, daughter.
Well done.
Stop it.
THANOS: Why?
By the look of it, you seemed content enough at the time.
I was a prisoner.
THANOS: You were a warrior.
I didn't ask for it.
THANOS: You didn't refuse.
After my planet died,
I had nothing. No one.
And I thought I never would.
And I was all right with that. I had a new vocation. [CHUCKLES LIGHTLY]
Then I found you.
And at my side, you became the fiercest woman in the galaxy.
That's why I chose you to find the Soul Stone.
I'm sorry I disappointed you.
I am disappointed.
But not because you didn't find it.
But because you did.
And you lied.
[SOFTLY] I don't know what you're talking about.
I gave you my trust!
You repaid it with deceit.
At least be honest about it now.
I can make you tell me. You seem to know that.
I never wanted to force you into anything.
That's why when you left me all those years ago,
I allowed it.
[SCOFFS] You allowed it?
THANOS: You haven't been under the impression you escaped?
Daughter, I raised you smarter than that.
Your daughter?
You didn't raise me.
You kidnapped me, orphaned me, and imprisoned me!
Everything I hate about myself comes from you.
I stayed because you taught me I didn't deserve better.
THANOS: Why did you leave?
Because I found people that showed me I did.
THANOS: You had a family here, little one.
No. I didn't.
THANOS: Yes.
No.
You just didn't care what happened to it.
GAMORA: Nebula.
Don't do this.
Please don't do this.