Avengers: Infinity War shocked many fans by killing off several of Marvel's star characters via Thanos’ Snap. Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to access the powers of each of the six Infinity Stones at the same time, empowering him to eliminate half of all life in the universe with a snap of his fingers and leaving the other half to pick up the pieces. Among those who were banished were some key Marvel heroes. The red hot Black Panther turned into a cloud of dust. Spider-Man, who only recently joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, vanished in Iron Man’s arm. Almost the entire Guardians of the Galaxy team was annihilated.

Does Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige regret that decision? "I was a hundred percent confident in that ending," he tells Empire Magazine, "until about the Monday before release. Then I started to get really nervous. It was like, 'Wait a minute: what have we done?' For years, leading up to the release of that ending, people were going, 'These movies are predictable. The good guy always wins.' And for years I was thinking, 'Just wait.'"

Feige has previously expressed how pleased he is with how the snap turned out, saying, "We did Infinity War and Endgame at the same time, but those have been the longest gestating movies we've ever made. Four years now, almost five years. And it was always about delivering on the promise that we had set up. And the way the world received Infinity War was amazing, it was exactly what we wanted.

"And that ending, which we had been working on for many years, and I do remember people, on all of the movies we've made and I'm sure on many of the movies we'll make in the future, whenever the good guy wins, which is often — good guy, good woman, good hero wins — they go, 'Eh, it's kind of predictable. Good guy wins. Well, sometimes that's fun. But for years I remember thinking, 'I wonder what they're going to do when they don't?' Because we knew that was coming. And it couldn't have been better. The reaction was the best. The reaction. Was. The. Best."

What do you think of the snap and the deaths of the Marvel heroes? Let us know in the comments!

Avengers: Endgame opens in theaters on April 26th.

Captain Marvel is now playing in theaters. Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th.

(h/t CBM)