Fear not, fan favorite characters that are not at the forefront of Avengers: Infinity War will receive the spotlight in Avengers 4! Check below for how the Russos are balancing all the characters.

Avengers: Infinity War is a massive ensemble film, encompassing around 40 main characters, various plots and character arcs from the past 10 years of MCU films. It is no surprise that creating two films that serve as the culmination events of the last decade of the MCU is a daunting task. In a recent interview with Fandango, Director Joe Russo had this to say when asked about how he and his brother balanced all of the characters in the next two Avengers films, drawing on their previous experiences with ensembles:

"You know, we've had a lot of experience balancing ensembles. Our first film 'Welcome to Collinwood' was an ensemble, 'Arrested Development' was an ensemble, 'Community' was an ensemble, 'Happy Endings' was an ensemble. We had a lot of experience working with and telling stories with a lot of characters and making sure that each of those characters was serviced either in an A story, a B story or C story in some regard - either driving the plot, or they're driving their own personal story. It's a lot of hard work and it's part of the reason that we decided to make Avengers 3 and 4, was just the pure level of ambition involved in the movies. It's an unprecedented amount of characters I think in a commercial film.



Joe though stressed that he and his brother could not be as successful in handling all of these characters if it was not for them working with their power duo team of writers, Steve McFeely and Christopher Markus. The Marvel director revealed some insight into how he and his brother approach all of the characters once they receive a script for the film:

We've all worked together on all four Marvel movies and they know the Marvel universe as well as anyone. They've, I think, written six or seven films for Marvel. Our job is once we get the story down on paper, we've got a draft and a script that we're happy with, and that has the structure and the plot that we're all happy with, we then start combing through the script from each character's point of view and try to make sure that we understand the story that we're telling with each character. Again, in a movie with 40 characters people are going to have varying degrees of investment in the story. They're either going to be either really high investment or low investment, and high screen time or lower screen time."



However, it is the next part that is sure to excite some people that have, let's say, noticed certain characters that have largely been absent from promotional material. As the Russos know, in a movie that has so many characters, it is hard to give everyone ample screen time. But that does not mean that they are ignoring anyone:



"We knew that because we had two films, 'Avengers 3' and '4', that in one movie we could push people to the forefront but then we could pull back in the second film and push other characters to the forefront who had less screen time in the first movie. We did have the opportunity to divide it up that way. So if you feel like one of your favorite characters didn't get enough screen time in Avengers 3, well then wait 'til 'Avengers 4.'"



So what does this last part mean? All you Hawkeye, Antman, Nebula, and even Captain Marvel fans, but especially you Hawkeye fans, fear not that your characters are being shafted in these films. Just because you do not see these characters at the forefront right now does not mean that they do not have an important role to play and, more importantly, will not be featured prominently at all. It sounds like the Russos want to properly give all the characters an equal opportunity to be in the spotlight and, as you can imagine, this means that not everyone will be able to shine in Infinity War. But perhaps that just means they are saving some of the best for last in Avengers 4!? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section about what Joe Russo has said regarding characters in the spotlight in both Avengers films!



