Now that Avengers: Endgame has been in theaters for more than a week, the “spoilers ban” put in place by directors Joe and Anthony Russo has lifted. While this doesn’t mean fans should go around shouting out the biggest plot twists to everyone they meet, it does mean we get new products based on the movie, behind-the-scenes social media posts from the cast, and — most importantly — interviews that say more than “the movie starts, and then it ends.”
Over the past few days, the Russo brothers in particular have started sharing more details about making the Endgame, the future of the characters, and more.
Joe gave an especially detailed interview last night: a live-streamed Q&A called “Game Over: An Evening with Joe Russo,” hosted by ComicBook.com.
Here are some of the fun Endgame and MCU facts Joe revealed during the nearly hour-long event. If it wasn’t obvious, Endgame spoilers ahead!
Why didn’t Bucky get Cap’s shield?
When asked why Captain America passed down his iconic shield to Sam Wilson and not Bucky Barnes, Joe Russo explained that Barnes is still figuring things out from his days as the Winter Soldier. Wilson, however, has a personality very similar to that of Steve Rogers. Russo said:
“Bucky is still a damaged character who, I think, feels like he doesn’t want the shield and I think that ultimately Sam is a character with free will who is the closest in morality to what Cap was and Cap believes he deserves it.”
What’s up with Gamora?
In Infinity War, Thanos kills his daughter Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone. Despite being dead-dead (not dusted dead), we did see Gamora return in Endgame, but as a time-traveling past version of herself who has never met her Guardians family. At the end of the movie, we see Peter Quill searching for her aboard his ship.
Russo spoke about the character’s future, saying:
“Even if she is alive, it’s not the same Gamora. The way timelines work is you’ve gotten a different character. This is not the same person, she doesn’t have the same emotional memories, she doesn’t have the same relationship to [Quill] … They look like the same person, but they don’t have the same experiences and the same emotional memories. It’s not the same person. No matter what, this would be a journey for him.”
Will RDJ return as Iron Man?
Unfortunately, Russo’s answer to this one was pretty definitive and succinct: “Tony’s dead, you know?” he said. “That’s it for Robert. He’s done.”
Is Vision really, really dead?
Another character who died at the hands of Thanos during Infinity War was Vision. Because he was killed, not dusted, Vision didn’t return when Bruce Banner used the stones to undo The Decimation. When asked if there is any hope for Vision, Russo didn’t give fans much hope for a resurrection any time soon. “He’s dead as far as I know,” Russo said. However, fans will get to see Paul Bettany return as Vision in the upcoming Disney+ series WandaVision.
Yes, there’s a multiverse.
Yesterday’s Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer also confirmed it, but Russo revealed in the Q&A that Endgame does indicate the existence of a multi-verse in the MCU. When discussing the multi-verse, Russo also shed some light on the rules of time travel in the movie.
“[Banner] says that if you leave the present to go to the past then that present has become your past. It has always happened. You can’t change it by influencing the past. What happens is you then create a new future by going into the past. So, you have to travel to the past, come back to that present and then fix it moving forward because you can’t’ alter it from back there. So, by necessity, by logic, you then create — if you were to stay back there — you would create an alternate timeline.”
This still seems to slightly contradict Captain America’s ending in Endgame, but we can all agree to let that one slide … right?
There was, at one point, more Thanos backstory.
According to Russo, there was a draft of Infinity War that featured a 10-minute scene explaining Thanos‘ backstory:
“You saw him as a child, you saw him try to convince his planet that it was doomed and recommend that they randomly kill half the population to save the planet. He gets sent to a prison off-planet and eventually watches the planet destroy itself. … [Thanos is] a very tortured character who’s sociopathic, but ultimately it’s benevolent sociopathy.”
The scene was obviously cut from the final version of the movie, but Russo says they explained this history to Josh Brolin to help him better understand the character.
The last scene filmed was …
This one will hit you right in the feels. According to Russo, the very last scene filmed for the movie was Tony Stark’s final “I am Iron Man,” just before he delivers the fatal snap that finally destroys Thanos and his army. The line was added in post production, which means it was filmed in Los Angeles, very near the stage where Robert Downey Jr. first screen tested for Iron Man.
To hear the full conversation with Joe Russo, check out the live stream of the event.
Photo: Getty
