#Infinity War And Endgame Was A Miracle And A Nightmare All At Once

Since “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” were in development while the preceding films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were coming together, you would think that writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely would have no problem knowing what unfolded in those films in order to plot the two sequels. After all, Marvel Studios had been working on overlapping projects for years at this point. But there was one problem: all six of the Marvel Studios movies in the pipeline that would precede the two-part of the conclusion of “The Infinity Saga” were in such a state of flux that almost all of them hadn’t finalized their stories. As “The Story of Marvel Studios” recounts:

“‘Doctor Strange’ hadn’t gone into production; ‘Guardians Vol. 2’ didn’t have a shooting script; ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ didn’t have a director, much less a lead actor to play Spider-Man; ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ had some treatments; creative conversations with Ryan Coogler about ‘Black Panther’ had barely begun. And then there was ‘Captain Marvel.’ It had some treatments and early drafts, but the film was already planned to release between the two connected Avengers films.”

Can you imagine trying to write two massive blockbusters intended to cap off 10 years of lead-up and over 20 films of interconnected stories without knowing where several of the film’s primary characters would end up in their own franchises beforehand? Plus, let’s not forget that this development started when Markus and McFeely were still working on “Captain America: Civil War” while it was in production. Markus said, “It was amorphous to the point where we’re like, ‘We don’t know if we can come up with a story.'” Meanwhle, Kevin Feige offered up the helpful advice of, “You know? Don’t worry about it. Do it anyway.”

It’s not as if Marvel Studios didn’t know how important these two films would be to the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe. As “The Story of Marvel Studios” says, “If a “finale” was a colossal failure, it would retroactively taint everything that came before it.” It was monumentally important that “Avengers: Infinity War” act as a stirring, cliffhanger season finale of sorts, and “Avengers: Endgame” came in to stick the landing. That’s actually why the working title for the “Avengers” sequels was “Mary Lou,” a reference to gymnast Mary Lou Retton, who famously stuck her own landing to make Olympics history.

As we all know now, Markus and McFeely were able to crack the stories for “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame,” but sticking the landing would require an insane amount of logistical organization due to the sheer scope of the films and the size of the cast.