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Avengers: Endgame avoided the multiverse because the existence of endless Iron Mans (Robert Downey Jr.) and Black Widows (Scarlett Johansson) would have lessened the finality of their deaths, according to screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

“It clearly exists because Doctor Strange has talked all about it, that’s part of the fabric of that,” McFeely said at San Diego Comic-Con.

“This may be where I disagree with Marvel or where they’re going, I have no idea where [president] Kevin Feige is going. I don’t know what’s happening tomorrow, I have no idea. But I’m a big believer in stakes, and if you tell me that I can just go get another Natasha and another Tony and we can keep rolling, then particularly my grandma’s gonna go, ‘Why don’t I watch that?’ And yet we are retraining the audience all the time. I may be wrong, two years from now, where people go, ‘I want all sorts of stories from people that I’ve already lost.’”

“Particularly in a movie where we are very much heading towards some final resolutions, toward things ending, toward people leaving,” added Markus.

“If you go, ‘Yeah, but there are 75 Tonys out there, or 75 billion Tonys out there,’ your drama is gonna suffer, because your stakes are lower. Now these things may or may not be true, but for the concrete rules of your movie, you have to run with the people. ‘Dance with who brung ya,’ as they say.”

Touched on in Thor: The Dark World and explored in Doctor Strange, the concept of the multiverse was flirted with again in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) claimed to hail from an alternate Earth — an origin story that, spoiler, is ultimately revealed to be fraudulent.

Feige at Comic-Con later unveiled Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a reality-spanning adventure teaming the Sorcerer Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch) with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).

“We first made reference to the multiverse in Doctor Strange. I think it’s something we’ll be playing with in our own way,” Feige previously told io9 when promoting Far From Home.

“Obviously, we mentioned it in Far From Home — but [Mysterio’s] not telling the truth — but I think that’s a fun storytelling opportunity for us, just the way they’ve done for years in the comics.”

Avengers: Endgame is available to own on Digital HD July 30 and on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray August 13. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens May 7, 2021.