Avengers: Infinity War type Movie

SPOILER ALERT: Read on only if you have already seen Avengers: Infinity War.

There are so many characters and so many planets and so much action packed into Avengers: Infinity War. But when directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo stopped by EW Morning Live (Entertainment Weekly Radio, SiriusXM, channel 105) on Friday to talk about the biggest movie in the history of movies, they shared some intel on one scene that did not make the final cut.

“Our first directors’ cut was probably 2:40 or 2:30,” said Joe when asked if there was anything that didn’t make the final film. “We’re pretty close to where the directors’ cut was.” According to the co-director, there is simply not a lot of time, money, or resources to waste on material that may not even end up in the story. “You have to be so vigilant in the script phase about what you are going to include in the movie just from a storytelling standpoint and be really difficult on the material, because it is so expensive to acquire the material and you have limited time with some of the actors. Schedules don’t always line up, so you have to be really targeted.”

That said, there is one scene that hit the cutting room floor. “I think there’s one really funny Guardians scene that didn’t make the cut,” reveals Joe. “Everything else was just sort of little loose ends here and there.”

And what pray tell was that missing Guardians of the Galaxy scene? “It’s just more of a straight-up comedic scene,” he says.

Brother and co-director Anthony Russo picks up the story from there: “It’s a scene where they’re sort of stuck. There’s a point in the movie where they’re stuck without knowing what to do. And it was just this absurd scene of the Guardians not knowing where to go. And it was really fun and it was very endearing to us. But because the movie is so big and so propulsive, it just wasn’t quite pushing us where we needed to go.”

Luckily for us, the scene will be seen, just not in theaters. “It will be on the DVD,” confirms Joe.

Speaking of things that were missing, many fans were surprised to see only one tag scene at the very end of the credits. Most Marvel films have at least two, with the second Guardians of the Galaxy film featuring five. When asked why Infinity War featured only a single post-credits tag scene — one in which Nick Fury turns to dust as Captain Marvel’s logo comes up on his pager — the brothers revealed that they actually considered having zero!

“We debated having no tags in this movie,” says Joe.

Anthony concurs. “We did. Part of it was because we knew the ending was a complicated ending, a difficult ending, and we wanted that ending to be very definitive. We didn’t want to complicate it with other ideas. So there is one tag that puts a small button it, but that’s it.”

The directors also weighed in on their favorite moments and scenes in the film. “Without giving anything away, there are a couple of hero entrances that are my favorite,” says Joe. “I don’t want to say specifically what they are, but if you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about. Those are things that again, just the child in me and the kid reading comics book, that I get excited about when I see them.”

As for Anthony, his pick for favorite scene matches mine — the one where Thanos and Gamora go to collect the Soul Stone, leading to a devastating decision. “I would probably agree with you about that Gamora moment,” says Anthony. “I love her character in this film. Her relationship with Thanos is… You know, anytime you have a relationship that is between a hero and a villain where there is a personal relationship at stake, things just get so much more interesting and so much more complex.”

Anthony compares that to some other examples from previous Marvel films. “That was one thing we loved when we made Winter Soldier — the relationship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, them being best friends as well as enemies was a very complicated relationship. I think you see that complex, rich relationship in the Thor-Loki relationship. They’re brothers who hate each other. Similarly, we loved exploring a father–daughter relationship that was very, very complicated and very difficult. And watching Gamora sort of step through that, she became the heart of the movie, I think.”

Joe agrees, and even pays the highest compliment of all: “She’s the bravest character in the film.”

To hear the entire interview with the Russo brothers, listen to Friday’s EW Morning Live on demand on the SiriusXM app.

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