Everything I’m Yelling About From the Russos’ Avengers Q&A

Directors Joseph and Anthony Russo, the mass murderers of my beloved superhero children, held a Q&A session following a screening of Avengers: Infinity War in Los Angeles. We have the highlights, annotated by my reactions to said highlights.

/Film’s editor Peter Sciretta was in attendance at “An Evening With the Russo Brothers” and did the One-Above-All god’s work in live-tweeting the event. You can visit /Film’s Twitter feed for a full run-down of the Russos’ commentary; I’m looking to the tweets most of interest to me and my emotional state.

First off the bat, many of us thought that the long-awaited Avengers 4 trailer might drop at this event. The trailer has been so strongly rumored to see the light of day this week that quite a few sites (including this one) have posted speculation about what it will contain, while other sites have articles like “Things You Can Do While Waiting for the Avengers 4 Trailer to Drop.” In short, we’re getting antsy.

No such luck, because Joe and Anthony delight in playing Cat’s Cradle with the strings of my heart. The Russos flat-out refused to answer questions about Avengers 4 or its trailer, going so far as to show that they would employ an air horn app in case the topic was mentioned.

Listen, my dudes, I get some amount of secrecy and build-up, but this is getting completely ridiculous. Throw us some frickin’ bones, we’re starving here.

Onward:

Secret Wars? SECRET WARS? Hahahhahahahhahaha. Please let us just finish this one Infinity War before joking about filming a cinematic event that would dominate the next ten years of my life. I’m so very tired.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—sorry, I mean, Tony, Maria, and Howard—thank you to all that is holy that we did not have to sit through Thanos: My Story. A Thanos-narrated version of this movie would have made it completely insufferable.

I mean, who doesn’t love the slaughter of refugees and fan favorites to set the initial mood? Thanos is a bad guy! Really bad! He means business! Who cares about a little movie called Thor: Ragnarok that gave a noble people who lost their homeworld a glimmer of hope about the future? Thanos is the biggest bad guy in the MCU’s history and he’s super-duper-important even though we’ve never really had to care about him until this VERY OPENING MOMENT! We’re not kidding around! Death to Asgard because of these reasons!

Robert Bruce Banner, M.D., Ph.D. has seven Ph.D.s but, uh, sure, okay.

In an exclusive scoop, I managed to get my hands on the dialogue from this cut scene.

PEPPER POTTS: Honey, just call him. I know you miss him.

TONY STARK: [stoically] I could never use a flip phone.

PEPPER: It’s okay, Tony. We’re in an open relationship for a reason. And that reason is a tall blond drink of ice water named Steve Rogers.

TONY: [gazes down at the cheap plastic chair he is sitting in despite his billions, tearing up] Steve loved lawn chairs, you know. They didn’t have lawn chairs like this in the 1930s. My father invented lawn chairs.

PEPPER: [goes back inside]

I would sign my soul away to Lady Death for a live stream of this match—it’s not so cut-and-dry as they’d like to imply. Joss would put up a fight consisting primarily of snarky, cutting insults that the Russos would try and counter with sarcastic comebacks from their Arrested Development era and everyone would end up in tears.

Thanos looked ridiculous in this movie, lumbering around spouting pseudo-environmentalist fascist crap to justify genocide and the abuse and murder of his children and, later, half of the children in the entire galaxy. Not a great look even with CGI in place.

Sorry but did Thanos have to channel the power of a dying star through his lilac body in order to gain the Infinity Gauntlet? Really, what terrible trials did he actually have to undergo in order to get that thing beyond killing people and “sacrificing” Gamora, who despised him? Like, at least make him pick out the cup of a carpenter from a fabulous glittering array of goblets or something first. This was all a little too easy.

The screenwriters actually did something right here. Probably because the scene had nothing to do with Thanos.

This is okay because Nazis suffering forever in the distant reaches of outer space is awesome and should also be established Twitter policy.

They were smart in this regard and possessed of the incredible gift of foresight that 3/4 of the Netflix Marvel characters would have no shows to go back to after they returned from the War.

“I’ve been dead before and that never stopped me, bitches.” —Loki Odinson’s epitaph

I’m so very, very, very tired.

This is mean and you know it.

This is even more mean.

Joe Russo can live when I finally get my hands on the Infinity Gauntlet.

Anthony Russo, a monster, will be Snaptured.

MARVEL FANS: Could we maybe have more diversity and representation of significant demographics of people—
MARVEL STUDIOS: NO SPOILERS!!!

If? IF??????

Listen, Marvel, I know we have our differences, but it sounds like that’s what you’re claiming to look for. Great! So consider this: hire me. I haven’t directed anything since the five-minute abstract video made for my freshman film analysis class, but I guarantee my vision of a wildly diverse, women-at-the-forefront, incredibly queer MCU is like nothing you’ve thought about before.

We knew this about the Soul Stone but I’d just like to take this opportunity to point out that “Thanks” is autocorrect’s hilarious way of continuing to punish us for Thanos’ existence.

OK, I am officially friends with the Russo brothers again, and both of them can live.

I spoke too soon. They are dead to me since this scene does not exist.

GAMORA. WE BELIEVE GAMORA. I AM SHOCKED AND AMAZED THAT THANOS’ UNHINGED THEORY ABOUT RESOURCES DID NOT PROVE CORRECT IN PAST APPLICATIONS.

Fair.

Hhmmmmmmmmmmmm.

As long as that character isn’t Thanos.

(via Peter Sciretta on Twitter, /Film, images: Marvel Studios)

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Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

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