‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Writers Talk Thanos Screen Time, If There Will Be 67 Characters

For Marvel Studios, Avengers: Infinity War is so massive it had to be split into two parts. The Russo brothers (Anthony and Joe) will be reteaming with their Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely on the two-part epic.

While the Russos let slip and then backtracked on the idea that there will be 67 characters in the film, Markus and McFeely went on to clarify even further how many characters will be facing The Mad Titan. According to them, there won’t be 67 characters but Thanos will be getting lots of good screen time. More on the story below.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, both Civil War writers talked about giving more screentime to Thanos since he has not been in a film for more than a few minutes. Here’s what McFeely told the site:

“Itâ€™s easy. Really giving him good scenes. You know, heâ€™s never been the villain in any of the movies. Heâ€™s never been the main character in that way, so giving lots of good screen time to Thanos is paramount and pretty fun.”

We first saw Thanos in The Avengers where he looked at the audiences with that villainous grin. At the time, he was portrayed by Damion Poitier. He was then fleshed out in Guardians of the Galaxy, where he was voiced by Josh Brolin. He then got another tiny cameo in Avengers: Age of Ultron. James Gunn has confirmed that The Mad Titan will not appear in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so it seems that we won’t be seeing the character for quite some time. That is unless he makes another cameo in the solo films. The guy will have to obtain the Infinity Stones somehow.

Seeing as how Thanos was already introduced to us in three films, Markus addressed some of the challenges of fully developing a character that has had no more than a minute of screentime:

“Thereâ€™s an aspect of, you know, people know whatâ€™s coming, so our challenge is how best are we going to handle this somewhat known quantity. But also heâ€™s barely been touched on. Heâ€™s at about 20 seconds of screen time.”

McFeely chimed in on how that may actually be an advantage:

“He hasnâ€™t had an amazing scene. I think itâ€™s an advantage ultimately, right? Because people are anticipating this guy coming in and really delivering the goods. So, I think theyâ€™re eager, and we just have to deliver it. We donâ€™t have to convince them that heâ€™s gonna be interesting. We just have to execute what has been teased.”

On the issue of the number of characters, McFeely described the process of knowing who is available to them:

â€œWe had our office filled with cards of everybody who was alive and available, and the brothers came in and went, â€˜Whoa.â€™ So that doesnâ€™t mean that everyone is, you know, thereâ€™s not going to be 67 lead parts.â€

Avengers: Infinity War Part I opens in theaters May 4, 2018. Part II is slated for a May 3, 2019, release.