Production of Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War
File:Avengers Infinity War logo.jpg
Directed by	Anthony Russo Joe Russo
Produced by	Kevin Feige
Screenplay by	Christopher Markus Stephen McFeely
Based on	The Avengers by Stan Lee Jack Kirby
Cinematography	Trent Opaloch
Production company	Marvel Studios
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Country	United States
Language	English

Avengers: Infinity War is an upcoming two-part American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is intended to be the sequel to Marvel's The Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), with Part 1 and Part 2 serving as the nineteenth and twenty-second films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) respectively. Both films are scheduled to be directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, with screenplays by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, and feature an ensemble cast composed of many of the actors who have appeared in previous MCU films.

Development of the films began in Marvel Studios' early films introducing the Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlets. Casting began in mid-2013 with Robert Downey, Jr. signing on to reprise his role as Tony Stark / Iron Man, with the films officially announced a year later. The Russo brothers and Markus and McFeely joined the project in early 2015. The films are expected to be filmed back-to-back, beginning in November 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia, and will be the first films to be shot entirely in IMAX, using a new 2D digital camera developed alongside Arri. Part 1 is scheduled to be released on May 4, 2018, and Part 2 is scheduled to be released on May 3, 2019.

Development

Well, I think it definitely is an end to some version of the team that we've come to know as The Avengers. Who knows exactly what's going to happen yet in [Infinity War], but I think this version of that team – and I think we started to hint at it at the end of Age of Ultron, that the team will be evolving. And one of the things we love in the comics is that the roster is always changing. That new people are coming on to the team... But the ideas and the ideals and things that make the Avengers the Avengers, still exist, and I think that's part of what this culmination will be. We're seeing this version of the team doing this thing to save the universe, the galaxy, however you want to put it, and we'll kind of see where that goes. It's not the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I think it is the end of part of it, for sure. We're still trying to sort out which parts.

—Producer Jeremy Latcham in September 2015 on how the films act as a culmination of all the preceding films of the MCU.

Starting with their early films, Marvel Studios began planting the seeds for Infinity War by introducing the Infinity Stones as MacGuffins. These immensely powerful objects grant near omnipotence if held together. They first appeared as the Tesseract / Space Stone in Captain America: The First Avenger, Loki's Scepter / Mind Stone in The Avengers, the Aether / Reality Stone in Thor: The Dark World, and the Orb / Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy. Additionally, a glove designed to house the stones known as the Infinity Gauntlet is briefly seen in Thor. A second glove is seen in Thanos' possession in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Many fans expected Thanos, a villain who covets the stones in the comics, to be the antagonist of the second Avengers film after making a brief appearance in the first film. However, Joss Whedon, the writer and director of the first two Avengers films, explained that "Thanos is more powerful. He is so powerful, he is not someone you can just try to out punch. Like in the comics, you want him to be threading through the universe and to save the big finale for the big finale." While all non-Avengers films leading up to Infinity War were considered set-up for the films and laid "much of the groundwork", producer and president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige noted that Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok would "lay some more", and Black Panther in particular was "a very important" link to the films.

In June 2013, Robert Downey, Jr. signed on to return as Tony Stark / Iron Man in Avengers: Age of Ultron and a third Avengers film, later confirmed to include both parts of Infinity War. The following May, Josh Brolin signed a multi-film deal, including both parts of Infinity War, to play Thanos. In July 2014, Feige stated that there were "some notions" to where Marvel would want to take a third Avengers film and that the actors from the previous films were under contract to appear in that film. He also said, while no release date was discussed, the studio was aiming for three years between Avengers: Age of Ultron and a sequel. In September 2014, Jeremy Renner revealed he was signed on for a third Avengers film, to reprise his role as Hawkeye.

In October 2014, Marvel announced a two-part sequel to Age of Ultron, titled Avengers: Infinity War. Part 1 is scheduled to be released on May 4, 2018, with Part 2 scheduled for May 3, 2019. After the announcement, Feige also talked about the scale of the film and the possibility of the characters from Marvel Television's Netflix Defenders series appearing, saying, "Infinity War is going to be big. There are a lot of people from the movies in Infinity War. A lot of it is about space, and a lot of it is about just what happens between now and then. But all of those things inhabit, however far on the outskirts, the same continuity. So certainly that opportunity exists." Feige also mentioned that Mark Ruffalo would return for Infinity War, reprising his role as Bruce Banner / Hulk. In November 2014, it was reported that Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 and Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 were scheduled to begin filming back-to-back in late 2015. Also in November, Tom Hiddleston signed on to return as Loki in Thor: Ragnarok as well as both parts of Infinity War.

In January 2015, Whedon stated that he was "very doubtful" that he would be involved with the two Infinity War films. By April 2015, Anthony and Joe Russo reached a deal to direct both parts of Avengers: Infinity War, with filming expected to begin in 2016. Whedon cited the series' increasing scale as to why he chose not to return explaining, "Every movie I have ever made has been an ensemble piece of increasingly enormous proportions... That many balls in the air, it's only going to get bigger with Infinity War. I'm not going to be able to give it what I would need to." Also in the month, Feige said the films would be two, distinct films "because they [have] such shared elements, it felt appropriate... to [subtitle the films] like that. But I wouldn’t call it one story that's cut in half. I would say it's going to be two distinct movies." Anthony Russo added that the two Infinity War films were "very very different from one another. It’s not a part one and part two scenario, necessarily. They’re just two different expressions. I think it creates a misconception that we’re shooting them at the same time." While promoting Age of Ultron, Chris Hemsworth—who plays Thor—revealed that he and Chris Evans—who plays Captain America—both had three films left on their contracts, which consisted of both parts of Infinity War and the third films of their respective franchises. Scarlett Johansson, who plays Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, said it was "too early to say", but believed she would be involved with at least one of the films. At the end of April, Evans revealed that filming was scheduled to begin in late 2016 over nine months, lasting until August or September 2017.

By May 2015, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely signed on to write the screenplays for both parts of the film, starting work during the filming of Captain America: Civil War "as soon as they start shooting [when] we don't have much to do for the next six hours," McFeely said. "We'd go to the office, read comic books, write down ideas, put everything on the wall and just go 'These are all the characters we could have.'" Markus added, "We sent in literally 60 pages of unrelated ideas. Just like 'Here's some stuff that could happen in this insane movie.' Then we came back from Atlanta and everyone had a copy of that [document] and they'd circle this, 'This is cool, this is insane, this is cool, we're not allowed to do that,' and from there [we] pieced it together very slowly." William Hurt, who returned to the MCU in Civil War as Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, expressed interest in appearing in Infinity War. In September 2015, Feige stated the films would explore the visions the Avengers saw in Age of Ultron, saying going forward, "were those little visions? Is that kind of like your worst fears being projected at you? Is that a prediction of the future? Or is that a sense of an ending doom that haunts you and keeps you awake at night? I think that'll be something we have to explore in Infinity War to kind of figure out how literal or not those are." In December, Anthony Russo stated that integrating characters from the MCU television series into Infinity War would be "complicated", due to the series' serial nature of storytelling, and the fact that, despite all existing in the MCU, Feige controls the films under Marvel Studios, and the television series are controlled by Marvel Television, with separate oversight.

Pre-production

In January 2016, the Russos stated that they were "breaking ground" on the films, and Joe highlighted their large scope, saying that the audience would "not be disappointed in the amount of characters" featured in the films, adding that they had a character board showing all previously introduced and available MCU characters "with like 67 characters on it." Markus and McFeely clarified that having that many characters available to them did not mean that all would appear in the films or be lead roles, and also noted the board did not include any potential new characters. Joe Russo also said the concept was "the Marvel universe [uniting] to battle the greatest threat to the world and universe that you’ve ever seen". He additionally noted their approach to the cosmic elements of Infinity War would be "with the same fervor that we did the earthbound work we've been doing" and "applying the same rules that we like to apply to the last two films that we've done" (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War). "We also are going to work really hard to bring a psychological realism. We obviously can't bring a naturalism to it because it doesn't really exist outside of science fiction, but we can bring that psychological realism to it, to the characters, and that's going to be our focus," said Joe. The Russos revealed that filming would begin in Atlanta, Georgia in November 2016 and would last until June 2017, and that Markus and McFeely had begun work on the screenplay for the first film.

The following month, McFeely, who also wrote Civil War with Markus, called writing Civil War "a walk in the park compared to these" films, noting the fact that they were writing scenes for characters who had not been cast yet. Additionally, Joe Russo said that he and Anthony wanted "a strong through line" from The Winter Soldier to Civil War and eventually the two Infinity War films, saying, "We look at [Civil War] as setting the stage for Infinity War, how it starts and what condition everybody's in." Joe Russo also expanded about crafting the story of the films with so many characters, saying that they hoped to "focus on a handful of characters" with many of the other characters appearing having "ancillary roles" in order for the story "to be built around the characters' emotional arcs." He also added that the number of characters in Civil War was preparing the brothers to "deal with probably triple the amount of characters in Infinity War". Also in the month, Stellan Skarsgård, who portrays Erik Selvig in the MCU, said he believed he would appear in Infinity War as he had one more film left on his contract, and would not be appearing in Thor: Ragnarok, while Krysten Ritter, who plays Jessica Jones in the Netflix series of the same name, also expressed interest in appearing, saying "it'd be really exciting to be a part of those giant, huge movies with those great characters who are already established, so it'd be awesome...There's always the chance that could happen." In March 2016, the Russos explained that they were exploring new ways to deliver additional material to audiences for the films, usually reserved for physical home media releases. Given the declining sales for Blu-ray and DVD, Anthony stated, "We’re just in the beginning phases of figuring [this] out. Yes, DVDs are gone but there is this wonderful internet platform out there called YouTube." One example he provided was creating "more elaborate versions of trailers...that are shot specifically for online that will never appear in the movie but that may appear as a kind of short film." Joe added that the duo were "also talking to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram about ways to feed ancillary content to them and to viewers because it’ll go viral there and you can reach millions of people."

The following month, the Russos revealed that Chris Pratt would reprise his role of Star-Lord, one of the Guardians of the Galaxy, from Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel in Infinity War, and that Scarlet Witch would appear as well, while Markus revealed that they were "in the middle" of piecing together the film. The Russos and Markus and McFeely also revealed they were "talking to the directors and writers of the other Phase Three movies on an almost weekly basis" in order to ensure "everything lines up right." Additionally, Anthony added that the films would be from multiple perspectives, saying, "You’re going to be moving around through different perspectives of the characters. It’s like Nashville for super heroes. It’s storytelling that is vignetted storytelling. It’s to composite all of them under one story - everybody. You can culminate without all of them". The Russos also teased the inclusion of Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel in the films, though Feige indicated that Captain Marvel was slated to first appear in her own film, which is scheduled to be released in between both parts of Infinity War. Markus also talked about how he and McFeely were handling Thanos, a character that the audiences knows is the threat of the films, yet until these films, had little scenes and screen time to divulge his history and motivations. He said, "We don’t get an element of surprise [with his introduction]... You can count on a lot of scenes where we illuminate a lot about him very early [in the first film]," with McFeely adding, "It is incumbent upon us to give him a real story, real stakes, real personality, and a real point of view." Also in April, Samuel L. Jackson stated he believed he would reprise his role as Nick Fury in both parts of Infinity War, and Jon Favreau confirmed he would once again serve as executive producer on the films, having done so on the previous Avengers films after directing the first two Iron Man films.

In early May, the Russos revealed that they would be retitling the two films, to further remove the misconception that the films were one large film split in two, given they were originally revealed as Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 and Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2, with Joe stating, "The intention is we will change [the titles], we just haven’t come up with [them] yet." Markus also teased the inclusion of additional Guardians in the film.

Filming

Principal photography for both parts is scheduled to begin in November 2016, lasting until June 2017, in Atlanta, Georgia, with Trent Opaloch serving as director of photography. Additional filming will also take place in locations around the world. The films will be shot concurrently, with the Russos stating "some days we’ll be shooting the first movie and some days we'll be shooting the second movie. Just jumping back and forth." Regarding the decision to shoot both films this way, Anthony Russo said it made more sense financially and logistically due to the large number of cast members, even though each part is its own distinct film.

The Russo brothers announced that both installments of Avengers: Infinity War would be shot using IMAX/Arri 2D digital cameras, thus marking the first time that a feature film will be shot entirely using IMAX cameras and its exclusive aspect ratio. The films will be captured on the Arri Alexa 65 with IMAX then digitally processing the footage. Opaloch noted that the production would use 12 of the Alexa 65 cameras, and that Arri was working on lenses with additional focal lengths for the camera, with the hope they would be available by the start of filming since the production would "need all the accessories and lenses" since it was "such a behemoth of a project."