Avengers: Infinity War co-director Joe Russo recently spoke with Black Girls Nerds’ Jaime Broadnax over at Fandango, and he revealed which of the movie’s characters will have the most screen time and who will be “telling the narrative.” The three characters who came up? Thanos, Thor, and Gamora.
Personally, I was surprised about those last two, because I’d sort of assumed that Thor and the Guardians would have the B-plot off in space, while the characters on Earth would take center-stage. Now, they may still be off in B-plot land, and it may just be that Joe Russo found their particular arcs the most compelling, but this was an intriguing interview either way.
When Broadnax asked Russo which characters were “invested with more screen time” in the movie, he rather unsurprisingly answered with Thanos. “I’ll start out by saying Thanos, even though he’s not a character that had a huge preexisting story in the Marvel universe,” Russo said. “He was a threat, but he was not developed in any way up to this point. Thanos has an incredible amount of screen time in this film; in a lot of ways I would say it’s his movie. Our job when we make these films — and what we feel is important to us — is to surprise the audience. We wanted to tell a story that they weren’t expecting, and the story is told from the point of view of a villain, which I think is also really unique and risky for a commercial film that will surprise the audience.”
In addition, Russo said that the film’s “point of view is Thanos’ point of view, so it’s a villain driving the narrative.”
However, while it sounds like this is ultimately Thanos’s movie, Russo said that two other characters will also have compelling arcs: Thor and Gamora. While Thanos is driving the film, Russo added, “I think you could argue, too, that a lot of the film is told from the point of view of Gamora, and I think she has a really fascinating arc in the movie.”
Given that Gamora knows more about Thanos than any of the other heroes, and that this is a Thanos-centric film, it makes sense that she’ll play a bigger role. It also fits with some of the shots we saw in the latest trailer. We saw present-day Gamora explaining Thanos’s goals to the others, and we also got two glimpses at what looks like a young Gamora taking Thanos’s hand in a flashback.
The God of Thunder will also have a “very important role” and significant character arc. Russo said, “I think you’ll find that Thor has a really interesting arc in the film. He hasn’t been at the forefront of other Avengers movies, but he certainly has a very important role in this film … I think you’ll see that Thor is at times hilarious and at times tragic in the film.”
Now, if you’re sad that one of your favorites isn’t listed here, don’t despair yet! The Russos planned to emphasize some characters in this film, and others in the next. “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,” Russo said. “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.”
Avengers: Infinity War arrives in theaters on April 27, 2018.
(via Fandango; images: Marvel Entertainment)
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