We spent the last few days re-living Thanos’ snap that wiped out half the universe but we also dug deep into Infinity War’s special features. Here’s the most important stuff we learned.
Infinity War’s entire production included 6,000 crew members spread around the world. Even more incredible is the fact there weren’t any big-time spoilers or secrets leaked prior to the film opening.
According to executive producer Victoria Alonso, there are around 2900 visual effects shots in Avengers: Infinity War. That’s out of 3,000 total shots – so that means only 100 shots in the entire movie didn’t rely on CGI.
Speaking of visual effects and everyone’s favorite Thicc Titan Thanos – Josh Brolin performed all the motion and performance capture for Thanos himself.
The really cool thing about the special features: you can see some early computer renders of Thanos based off Brolin’s performance. His mannerism, gestures and eyes. It’s all there. It’s pretty mind blowing how much work went into bringing a believable Thanos to life.
I can’t even wrap my head around this but apparently the showdown between Dr. Strange and Thanos on Titan was rendered and animated before Benedict Cumberbatch even gave his performance. This allowed the other departments to work on the scene’s effects long before Cumberbatch filmed his lines on a green screen.
According to the Russos, the Wakanda battle was one of the most physically challenging things they’ve ever shot. It was all shot on a physical location, specifically a big ranch in Georgia that the crew turned into the fields of Wakanda. They imported plant life native to Africa and even created an artificial river that pumped 30,000 gallons of water per minute.
In order to faithfully recreate Wakanda from what we saw in Black Panther, the Russos worked in tandem with Black Panther director Ryan Coogler when mapping out Wakanda’s geography. Coogler and company had developed maps of Wakanda that helped the Russos determine the logistics and location of the the big battle. The Wakandan army featured many familiar faces in it, but it also required 70 extras on set, plus stunt people. Their numbers were then digitally expanded to around 500 who battled against 10,000 of Thanos’ space dogs, I mean Outriders.
One of the biggest challenges of filming in Georgia? The rain, actually. The Russos would try to shoot the actors’ close-ups on rainy days and hope for the sun to come out the next day.
Believe it or not, the Russos swear that Hulk is not afraid of Thanos. Uh, it sure looked like it. But apparently, the green guy’s absence from the rest of the is not based in fear. It was more about emphasizing the problematic relationship going on internally with Bruce Banner and the Hulk.
As the Russos explain it, Banner typically uses the hulk to solve crisis situations and the Hulk is no longer interested in solving these problems for him. It’s a dysfunctional relationship and Hulk is basically tired of playing the hero all the time.
So does this mean that Hulk is the more powerful personality of the two? Remember we saw a whole lot of Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok and it was incredible so I’m definitely holding out hope for a Hulk vs Thanos rematch in Avengers 4.
Let’s talk about The Snap which was known on set as the bloodbath sequence. The Russos admitted that they thought long and hard about which Avengers would die after Thanos snapped his fingers.
The first person to go is Bucky Barnes, which is shot from the perspective from Captain America. It’s profound because we’ve spent a few movies with these two and know what their relationship means to one another.
Another example: Black Panther’s death. Okoye’s number one mission in life above all else is to protect her king and she watches in horror as he disappears into thin air right in front of her.
And then there’s Peter Parker whose goodbye is drawn out just a bit longer than everyone else’s. The reason why? Tom Holland actually fought to extend the scene for the added emotion and drama. Joe Russo added that Parker used up all his superhuman strength against disappearing quickly which allowed him to last longer than some of the others.
What about some other consequences of the snap? Well it clearly looked like it left Thanos with a big-time boo boo (not to mention Stormbreaker sticking out of his chest) as well as the gauntlet damaged beyond repair.
It makes a whole lot of sense. Remember ordinary folks can’t even hold one of these stones without being vaporized – shouts to Red Skull – so using all six stones in tandem is a significant amount of power so much so that it permanently damaged the rare gauntlet and Thanos.
The good news: we can presume that Thanos is weaker in Avengers 4. But the bad news, the gauntlet might not work anymore. Which makes you wonder how they will un-do all of these deaths.
One of the best parts of this release: the 10 minutes of deleted scenes. One of which shows the Guardians receiving several encoded messages from Nebula warning them that Thanos is taking Gamora to Titan. It gives a bit more insight from the Guardians’ perspective in their search for Gamora and and how they run into Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man.
Another scene shows a bit longer version of Thanos telling Gamora that he knows she lied about the Soul Stone. He uses the Reality Stone to create a younger Gamora when she returned from battle. Thanos also reveals that he ultimately let her escape.
There’s also an extended version of Tony Stark and Pepper’s conversation in the park. Jon Favreau’s Happy makes a cameo and berates them about their upcoming nuptials.
But the biggest cameo? Thor director Sir Kenneth Branagh. Surprisingly, his voice is the first thing we hear as the film opens: the Asgardian distress call. In case you were wondering, it was confirmed that several people did escape safely off the ship prior to Thanos’ arrival, including Valkyrie. Still no word on Korg though.
Speaking of MCU directors, during the roundtable feature Jon Favreau credited Elf as the reason he was hired to direct Iron Man. Elf made a bunch of money and put Favreau on a list of directors that were hirable. One of the highlights of the roundtable was Taika Waititi who wasn’t physically there. Instead they propped up an iPad over a Hawaiian shirt with a hat on. Taika FaceTimed and it was amazing.
And I’ll leave you with this: the infamous Avengers post-credits shawarma scene started out as on big joke. What makes this even more incredible, they shot that scene after the movie had already premiered, at least in Europe. According to Whedon, while they were all doing press they found a shawarma place a few blocks away from the hotel and got everybody in there. They even had to cover Chris Evans’ beard – who was likely filming Snowpiercer at the time — with some makeup and a prosthetic. Look closely as Evans does his best to cover it up with his hand during the scene.
