Infinity War: Thanos' Snap Was Originally Saved For Avengers 4
The hardest choices require the strongest wills.
The ending of Avengers: Infinity War is one of the most shocking moments not just in the movie, but the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanos collects all six Infinity Stones and makes good on his promise, destroying half the universe with a click of his fingers.
However, the climax to the film could've played out much differently. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who have also penned next year's Avengers 4, spoke to The New York Times about the snap and its original placement, revealing that it initially didn't happen until Avengers 4 in an early draft.
It was changed, they said, because otherwise "it would feel more like a cliffhanger than we intended," with the opening of Avengers 4 then simply being "a continuation of exactly what you were watching before."
Instead, they chose to go for a movie "that went all the way to a tragic ending. And then one where mysterious things happen that I can’t tell you about.”
The more overt cliffhanger feels much more in line with the original plan for Infinity War, which had the two movies titled as Part 1 and Part 2. In that case, saving the snap might've made more sense - although it still would've robbed the first movie of its powerful ending - but with the two films needing to be clearly distinct from one another, it's easy to see why the snap was moved forward.
Not only was it a devastating conclusion, but it makes Avengers 4 much harder to predict, and allows it to fully explore the repercussions of Thanos' actions and gives the remaining heroes a full movie to try and reverse them.
Do you wish the snap had been saved for Avengers 4? Let us know down in the comments.