I HEART Lizzie » Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War

Original Release: April 27, 2018
Genre: Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi
Running time: 149 minutes
Directed by: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Screenplay by: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Produced by: Kevin Feige
Distributed by: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Budget: $316–400 million
Box Office: $2.048 billion

As the Avengers and their allies have continued to protect the world from threats too large for any one hero to handle, a new danger has emerged from the cosmic shadows: Thanos. A despot of intergalactic infamy, his goal is to collect all six Infinity Stones, artifacts of unimaginable power, and use them to inflict his twisted will on all of reality. Everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment, the fate of Earth and existence has never been more uncertain.

Cast & Characters

Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark / Iron Man), Chris Evans (Steve Rogers / Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner / Hulk), Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton / Hawkeye), Don Cheadle (James Rhodes / War Machine), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch), Paul Bettany (Vision), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson / The Falcon), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson / Falcon), Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa / Black Panther), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang / Ant-Man), Tom Holland (Peter Parker / Spider-Man), Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Stephen Strange), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Peter Dinklage (Eitri), Benedict Wong (Wong), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Dave Bautista (Drax the Destroyer), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Vin Diesel (Groot), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), Gwyneth Paltrow (Virginia “Pepper” Potts), Benicio del Toro (Taneleer Tivan / The Collector), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Chris Pratt (Peter Quill / Star-Lord).

Production Photos

Production Notes

In October 2014, Marvel announced a two-part sequel to Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), titled Avengers: Infinity War. Part 1 was scheduled to be released on May 4, 2018, with Part 2 scheduled for May 3, 2019. In April 2015, Marvel announced that Anthony and Joe Russo would direct both parts of Avengers: Infinity War, with back-to-back filming expected to begin in 2016. The next month, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely had signed on to write the screenplays for both parts of the film, which draws inspiration from Jim Starlin’s 1991 The Infinity Gauntlet comic and Jonathan Hickman’s 2013 Infinity comic. Anthony Russo added the film was inspired by 1990s heist films, with Thanos “on a smash-and-grab [to acquire the Infinity Stones], and everybody’s trying to catch up the whole movie”. Producer Kevin Feige said that the Infinity War films were subtitled Part 1 and Part 2 “because they [have] such shared elements, it felt appropriate… But I wouldn’t call it one story that’s cut in half. I would say it’s going to be two distinct movies”. In May 2016, the Russos revealed that they would retitle the two films, to further remove the misconception that they were one large film split in two, with Joe stating, “The intention is we will change [the titles], we just haven’t come up with [them] yet”. That July, Marvel revealed Part 1‘s title would be shortened to simply Avengers: Infinity War.

Principal photography began on January 23, 2017, under the working title Mary Lou, at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, with Trent Opaloch as director of photography. Infinity War, along with Avengers: Endgame, were shot using IMAX/Arri 2D cameras, thus marking the first time that a Hollywood feature film was shot entirely with IMAX digital cameras. In early February, Marvel confirmed the involvement of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord, and Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the film. Additional filming took place in Scotland beginning in February 2017. The filming occurred in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Scottish Highlands, with studio work taking place at Wardpark Studios in Cumbernauld. In late June 2017, filming occurred in Downtown Atlanta, as well as Atlanta’s Central Park in early July, before moving to Queens, New York in the middle of the month. Filming concluded on July 14, 2017. For the film’s final scene, where Thanos settles in a nipa hut, the filmmakers worked with Thailand studio Indochina Productions to acquire footage of the Banaue Rice Terraces at Ifugao, Philippines.

Later in July 2017, Joe Russo stated there were a couple of unfinished scenes for Infinity War that would be shot “in the next few months”. In early March 2018, Disney moved the release of Infinity War in the United States to April 27, 2018, to have it be released the same weekend as some of its international markets. Visual effects for the film were created by Industrial Light & Magic, Framestore, Method Studios, Weta Digital, DNEG, Cinesite, Digital Domain, Rise, Lola VFX, and Perception. With an estimated budget in the range of $316–400 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made. Evans and Hemsworth both earned $15 million for the film.

Trivia

Unlike the previous two “team-up” movies that Marvel has made, no new heroes are introduced in this movie. Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) and The Vision were introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and Spider-Man and Black Panther made their first appearances in Captain America: Civil War (2016). All of the heroes from The Avengers (2012) appeared in earlier movies.

[at around 37 mins] When Scarlet Witch and Vision see the attack in New York City, she’s standing outside a shop in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can clearly see a sign inside the store that reads “we will deep fry your Kebab”. There is a long running joke (in the U.K. at least) that Scots will deep fry absolutely any food unnecessarily, which stems from the infamous Deep Fried Mars Bar.

When the Avengers regroup at headquarters in upstate New York, Colonel James Rhodes (War Machine) was the only one who had been there the whole time. This comes to show that, since the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), Rhodey was the only member of the Avengers to remain loyal to the Sokovia Accords. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is still a registered Avenger, but he regularly defies the Accords, Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) was excommunicated for helping Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes escape the Berlin Airport, and Vision went into exile alongside Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) because of his emotional attachment to her. When The Avengers regroup in this movie, however, even Rhodey was willing to turn against the Accords to assist his former teammates in the greater cause.

Release & Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 85% with an average score of 7.63/10, based on 456 reviews. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Avengers: Infinity War ably juggles a dizzying array of MCU heroes in the fight against their gravest threat yet, and the result is a thrilling, emotionally resonant blockbuster that (mostly) realizes its gargantuan ambitions.” Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100 based on 54 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.

Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter praised the writers’ and directors’ ability to balance the large cast of characters, saying they, “under the supervision of Marvel Films maestro Kevin Feige, acknowledge the traffic jam of egos and play it for laughs”. Owen Gleiberman of Variety concurred, stating, “Infinity War is a brashly entertaining jamboree, structured to show off each hero or heroine and give them just enough to do, and to update their mythologies without making it all feel like homework”. Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers said the film is “too much of a good thing” and wrote, “The Russo brothers have clearly never learned the concept that less is more. They’ve used the premise of an Avengers reunion to put on a fireworks explosion of action and laughs that won’t quit”. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called it Marvel’s “biggest and most ambitious movie yet”, but concluded “it’s certainly not the best. However, there’s plenty of action, humor and heart—and some genuinely effective dramatic moments”. Roeper went on to praise the film’s cast and Josh Brolin in particular, whom he called “the film’s most interesting performance”. Gleiberman called Brolin’s motion capture performance “supremely effective” and said, “Brolin infuses Thanos with his slit-eyed manipulative glower, so that the evil in this movie never feels less than personal”. McCarthy wrote, “Brolin’s calm, considered reading of the character bestows this conquering beast with an unexpectedly resonant emotional dimension, making him much more than a thick stick figure of a supervillain”. Gleiberman also praised the film’s action sequences, saying “Infinity War brims with tensely spectacular combat sequences, even if the question of who’s going to win each one has that extravagantly arbitrary could-Mighty-Mouse-beat-up-Superman? quality”. McCarthy called the scale of the action “astonishing”, and Travers wrote, “Avengers: Infinity War leaves viewers up in the air, feeling exhilarated and cheated at the same time, aching for a closure that never comes”. Josh Spiegel, also of The Hollywood Reporter, said the film takes “a cue from the ending of The Empire Strikes Back in its super-sized finale; this is the equivalent of Han Solo frozen in the carbonite, on steroids”.

A. O. Scott of The New York Times criticized the film’s reliance on other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, saying, “Considered on its own, as a single, nearly 2-hour-40-minute movie, Avengers: Infinity War makes very little sense”, but conceded that it “was never meant to be viewed or judged in isolation”. Richard Brody of The New Yorker agreed, stating, “The insubstantiality of the film isn’t due to the infinite yet flimsy malleability of C.G.I. gimmickry but, instead, to the dispersion of its drama throughout the many cinematic installations set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Stephanie Zacharek of Time said, “[It] isn’t really a beginning, but more of a middle or an end with a new piece of yarn attached. You need to have seen and internalized every one of the previous 18 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to fully get it”. Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times called it a “brisk, propulsive, occasionally rousing and borderline-gutsy continuation of a saga that finally and sensibly seems to be drawing to a close”, but called its ultimate bid for catharsis “unsuccessful” since the Marvel “assembly line [is not stopped] from chugging ahead with its signature polished, mechanized efficiency”. Scott also criticized the action sequences, calling them “tedious and predictable” and “surely the most expensive parts of the movie, but the money seems less like an imaginative tool than a substitute for genuine imagination”. Likewise, Zacharek said, “There’s no pacing in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s all sensation and no pulse. Everything is big, all of the time”.