There are major developments that occur for each these characters - which in a normally scaled movie would be given time and weight - that get rushed through, simply because the filmmakers have so much else they need to do to wrap up the whole spectacle inside two and a half hours. You can't contain as many characters as "Avengers: Infinity War" tries to juggle and also manage storylines for all of them that are told in a satisfying way. The problem is when that concept runs smack into the practical realities of filmmaking.
Most fans are showing up because they want to see how their favorite superhero - whether that's Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) or Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) or the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) or Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Spider-Man (Tom Holland) or Star Lord (Chris Pratt) - will fare in the supposedly epic tale unfolding on the screen.Īll of which is fine, at least in theory. Most people aren't going to see this because they're so amped-up to meet the long-hyped supervillain at the end of that road, a would-be universe-conqueror named Thanos. While it's tempting to buy into the Marvel Studios line that this is all the culmination of 10-plus years of storytelling set up, that's not quite true. If early box office returns wind up proving accurate, this strategy is likely to pay off, bigly.
The screenplay is credited to Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, though there's no telling how many producers, executives and rewrite specialists may have been involved. Those in charge are the directing team of Anthony and Joe Russo, who also made the last two "Captain America" films. By some accounts, this movie cost as much as $400 million to make. The poster pretty much gives it away - the listing of dozens of glittering names from its star-studded cast, the assembly of countless superheroes and regular heroes and peripheral characters that audiences are meant to love.Īs with many other superhero movies that try to stuff too many characters and subplots into one container, "Avengers: Infinity War" feels less like a coherent story and more like an attempt to wring as much money as possible out of its various superhero characters through virtue of sheer name recognition. The biggest problem with "Avengers: Infinity War" is evident even for someone who has just seen the advertising, and may never even see the movie. I guess that means this is your pre-alert alert. Since about half my argument depends on discussing key plot elements that come late in the film, a few paragraphs from now there will be a massive spoiler alert. It's also, at least arguably, a dangerous movie for anyone who cares about the future of American cinema. It's crazy how much money is spent on these films, but as you sit through those credits at the end of the film waiting for the post-credits scene, you can see where all that money goes."Avengers: Infinity War" isn't just a gussied-up mediocrity being widely mistaken for a good movie. Then there’s just the day-to-day running of a production that can be very expensive." So between those two, those are the largest categories that take most of the money. The VFX are incredibly expensive on a movie like this, well into the hundreds of millions. These movies have been incredibly successful, there’s 18 of them, and typically as movies succeed, the cast can get more expensive. Joe says, "The cast gets all of it," and Anthony added, "We give most of it to Downey." Joe then says: "It does break down that way where the cast does get a big percentage of it. Joe added that "It really is like a sprint to the finish, these movies." The directors went on to talk about where all the money goes and most of it goes to the actors. While talking to Sway's Universe, Joe Russo said that the two films show for "a year straight from January to January with about two weeks in-between" and it took "350, 400, 450,000 a day just to keep the production running." He then revealed that they went over budget and Anthony Russo admitted: "The irony is like no matter how much money you have, at some point you run out of money.
In a recent interview with The Russo Bros., they revealed that the films ended up going over budget and that it cost them $450,000 dollars a day to make these movies! That's insane! Every day for a full year they could've bought a freakin' house! About a year ago it was revealed that the combined budget of Infinity War and Avengers 4 would be $1 billion. Making a movie like Avengers: Infinity War isn't cheap.