The ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Team Explains How They Picked Who Survived Thanos’ Snap

Now that Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War is available on digital download, you can re-live The Snap Heard ‘Round the World whenever you want. Yay The home release includes a commentary track, 10 minutes of deleted scenes (including one involving Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove”), and a half-hour of featurettes where, among other behind-the-scenes information, directors Anthony and Joe Russo and executive producer Trinh Tran explain how they and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely picked Thanos’ victims.

Spoiler alert: they wanted to break hearts.

“In terms of our choices of who Thanos would end up eradicating with his snap, it was very story focused,” said Anthony Russo. “How do we pay off each individual character story most profoundly The first person to go is Bucky Barnes and it’s shot from Captain America’s perspective. We’re watching Cap go through the experience of watching him go away. We’re watching Okoye, whose number one mission it is in life is to protect the king. She watches the king go, in front of her. To see those characters react in those situations is very powerful and resonant.” (It helps that they didn’t know until the day of.)

Tran added, “When Thanos shows up, we really wanted to make this the most powerful moment ever.” It was also the most secretive.

“The audience is so good at predicting stories that even just the smallest clue can tell them where the film is gonna go. So, we worked really hard to make sure none of the secrets of the film leaked,” Joe Russo said. “It’s about as massive a production as you can mount. About 6,000 crew members working on the film from around the world.” (Via)

One decision-making aspect that the Russo brothers and Tran left out, however, was something Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige alluded to earlier this year: that the original gang — Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, The Hulk, and (probably) Hawkeye — survived the snap. “I think for a film series that is going on 10 years and is gearing towards a conclusion with Avengers 4, which you don’t usually have in these kind of movies, you can sort of do the math,” he said. “And realize it’s the original Avengers that are left.”

With all that death on the brain, bring on the bloops!