Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 directors Anthony and Joe Russo aim to stay true to the Marvel comics that inspired the Marvel Cinematic Universe without copying material already familiar to comic book readers.

“We like to keep the essence of the characters and the concepts, but give audiences a completely new story,” Joe Russo said during a live Infinity War Vudu viewing party Friday night.

Infinity War was inspired in part by the 1991 Infinity Gauntlet miniseries by Jim Starlin, George Pérez and Ron Lim, but the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe iteration of the story was interpreted and crafted by the Russos and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

“We’re inspired by the books, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the Marvel comic book universe,” Russo told TelegraphIndia earlier this year. “They’re different. As a comic book fan, I think it’s fun to take elements from the books that I identify with. But if I want a literal interpretation, I’ll just read the book.”

Russo explained it was more important for their take on Infinity War to differ from the comic book because the MCU has long told mostly-original screen stories since its inception with Iron Man in 2008, and the priority is to carry over plot threads from a decade’s worth of movies instead of tangentially-related comic books.

“I think that Marvel jumped off with this cinematic experiment that they started 10 years ago with a narrative that diverts from that,” he said.

“So we wanted to fulfill storylines that we’ve set up in Captain America: Winter Soldier and Civil War that we want to carry forward into Avengers: Infinity War and the next one; but not necessarily do a literal interpretation of Jim Starlin's’ book. But there are great ideas in that book, and we owe a lot of the movie and what’s behind the movie to Jim.”

The directing duo pay special attention “to find connective tissue that the audience can relate to and has emotional connection to based upon what they’ve seen before,” he explained.

“As far as fan service goes, every fan wants something different. You can’t please all fans. We’re fans, and we love making these movies, and we loved comic books growing up. So our mandate all along has been that we’re going to make something that pleases us, that we’re happy with and that we’re excited about and that we want to share with people. Then we keep our fingers crossed that everybody’s as excited about it as we are.”

Avengers: Infinity War is now available to own on Digital HD ahead of its August 14 premiere on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray. Avengers 4 opens May 3, 2019.