Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame follow in this article.
Marvel Studios
On the 8th of August, THN was lucky enough to attend an Avengers: Endgame screening with none other than producer and plot overseer Kevin Feige.
Any re-watch of Marvel’s biblical, behemoth scaled finale to their show-stopping first decade as a film studio is bound to be bittersweet. This is thanks to the film’s real-world triumph (it emerged victorious from a brief scuffle with James Cameron’s Avatar to hold first place with the biggest box office revenue of all time). But also thanks to the tragic particulars of its plot: as the 22nd film it brought the end to a phase of characters, with the deaths of MCU frontman Tony Stark, Black Widow and the exit of Chris Evan’s Steve Rogers as Captain America, respectively).
It seems, for Kevin Feige, ‘Endgame’ hits just as hard with him as it does an audience. He described disguising his own tears as sneezes in front of the film’s editor during hours in the cutting room.
In fact, the studio head (whose actual head itself is rarely seen without it’s iconic Marvel logo baseball cap) can thank his own fanboy investment in the comic book material for the subsequent success of the film adaptations — their careful construction inspired a matching detail-oriented affection in their fans.
And he put plenty of that giddy, infectious avidity on display when sitting down to discuss the film during an intimate screening of the epic helmed by EMPIRE’S Chris Hewitt.
Feige didn’t shy away from admitting the trials of completing the Avengers arc: be it the pressure he felt not to let their big finale “flop” — especially, as he recalled, in the face of the daunting runaway success of its predecessor Infinity War — or the “four to five years” of sleepless nights fearing they wouldn’t quite carry off the ending, or the many creative retreats spent puzzling over the best way to see through the reveal of a smug throned-up Thanos (that Joss Whedon first dropped on stupefied cinema-goers in 2012) into a being of palpable and earned terror.
In other words: “How do we pay off this purple guy?”.
Unless you’re the 1 percent of the world who hasn’t seen it, you’ll know they did manage it. ‘Endgame’, as a step beyond ‘Infinity War’, and also a swan song for a generation of heroes and stories Marvel Studios committed to, is a deeply emotive, deeply self-aware and deeply triumphant full stop. It combines dizzying visual spectacle, a heart-stopping (and career-best, in Feige’s opinion) Alan Silvestri score, punchlines to jokes set up years prior (on your left) and intimate character moments, gathering them like the stones of an infinity gauntlet to pack one powerful final gut punch to long-time viewers.
Feige cannot hide that he is pleased. He called the chance to have a real ‘ending’, with real loss (goodbye Iron Man) and real interpersonal gains between characters (oh hello, Carol Danvers and Peter Parker duo) as super “fun”. And for the online critics that clamoured for higher stakes, who might now be sore at the loss of both Rogers and Stark? “Be careful what you wish for,” Feige chuckled.
Related: Avengers: Endgame review
During the pre-film Q & A, we asked the comic-book wonderkid-done-good if he struggled with the release of alternate scenes — such as the extended reaction to Tony’s snap death, with fellow heroes Doctor Strange and Peter Quill taking a knee — as part of the DVD extras (coming your way with the home release of Endgame on September 2nd).
Does Feige, after months and years of decision making, worry about fans seeing the things he didn’t go with, and even prefer them to the cinematic cut?
Thankfully, he didn’t seem too concerned. He fielded a question from THN that he believes all material, even lost or unused, is meaningful to Marvel’s fandom. He even teased us with the possibility of a hyper-extended “Infinity saga omnibus” DVD set he may release one day.
An omnibus filled with the “humiliating” failed sequences that inevitably arise from the cohesive trial and error behind the scenes: that endless brainstorming that forms the foundation for the ultimate success of the MCU. The consensus being: in order to get the glory of scenes like Cap’s Mjolnir wielding duel with Thanos, the screenwriters first had to work through hilarious fantasies of Thanos bouncing Cap’s head through the Avengers’ compound like a basketball. (Feige swears there is concept art of this somewhere).
Maybe one day we will indeed see all that we haven’t yet. Certainly Kevin thinks as much — promising that anyone who purchases a home collection of a ten or even twenty (fingers crossed) year franchise deserves a peek at the lost archives.
Sounds good to us; the words of a man who believes in his audience as much as they have come to learn they can believe in him and his steadfast vision.
Until then, ‘Endgame’ is coming to all homes this September.
Catch THN’s full question and answer with Kevin Feige, and the producer’s revealing chat with Chris Hewitt on the EMPIRE podcast online, available soon. Avengers: Endgame is released on Digital Download on 19th August and physical release on 2nd September.
