Each Infinity Stone Thanos Collects Comes at a Wrenching “Cost” for One of Our Favorite Characters

Avengers: Infinity War has been described by co-director Joe Russo as a “heist film,” in which “Thanos is on a smash-and-grab, and everybody’s trying to catch up the whole movie.” However, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wanted to ensure that a heist film with six different objects to steal didn’t feel stale or repetitive. Speaking with ScreenRant, they revealed that their workaround for that was to “wrench some emotion” out of every one of Thano’s successes.

“Remember, one of our jobs, we’re big structure guys,” said McFeely. “So if you go back and look at Winter Soldier and Civil War particularly, they are, whether you like the movies are not, they’re pretty well structured. Big choices have been made. We had to do the same thing here and yet we had 6 MacGuffins – it can be relentless if you do this right.”

“Which means, every time you collect [an Infinity Stone] – I don’t mean to get into the screenwriting weeds – but every time you collect one, it can’t just be a check mark. It has to do something characterful. It’s got to move the plot forward, but it also has to have stakes and cost for literal characters at the time, so that it’s not just a shopping spree. And I think we’ve done that and boy, we’re going to wrench some emotion out of each and every one of those moments that we can.”

Obviously, speculation has been high about which characters will die in Infinity War, though knowing that the movie’s “costs” will be specifically linked to the collection of the Stones does suggest some of the obvious targets: Vision for the Mind Stone, Loki for the Space Stone, Dr. Strange for the Time Stone, etc.

The more salient point, though, is that this movie plans to wreck you with your fandom feels, so say farewell to your favorites in advance. “Boy, we’re going to wrench some emotion out of each and every one,” sounded like both a promise and a threat.

Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27, 2018.

(via ScreenRant; image: Marvel Entertainment)

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