There’s still more than a week to go before ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ arrives in theaters, but we’ve already been given an idea of what to expect to find on the film’s home video release. And as befits a film as big (in every sense of the word) as ‘Infinity War’ is shaping up to be, that includes plenty of deleted scenes.
This marks a bit of a change for co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who previously helmed ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Captain America: Civil War’ for Marvel are no stranger to deleted scenes. That’s part and parcel of making movies. But if you’re acquainted with the bonus features on those two films’ home releases, you’ll know that while there are deleted scenes included, there aren’t a ton of them. That’s not a result of Marvel being stingy with their extras, but rather of the Russo brothers’ approach to moviemaking. But the sheer scale of ‘Infinity War’ demanded a somewhat different approach, and with that comes deleted scenes aplenty.
As Joe Russo tells Digital Spy:
“We were very tight with the scripts on ‘Winter Soldier’ and ‘Civil War’, so there weren’t a lot of extras. This is a very big movie with a lot of characters in it, and we played around with a lot of improvisation because we had new chemistry that we were defining between characters.”
The brothers – who cut their teeth directing cult hit sitcoms before joining the Marvel team – also alluded to a tradition of theirs that is alive and well in ‘Infinity War’: Easter eggs! Both ‘The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Civil War’ featured cameo appearances by members of the ‘Community’ cast, and ‘Civil War’ also included a nod to their work on ‘Arrested Development’, as the Bluth stair car appeared in the background of that film’s airport fight. While they didn’t get too specific (that would spoil the fun!), the Russos did suggest that ‘Arrested Development’ fans, in particular, might want to keep their eyes open this time around.
Directed by the Russo brothers from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ marks the culmination of a decade-long effort by Marvel Studios and sees the Avengers team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to take on Thanos. The film counts Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Paul Rudd, Chadwick Boseman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olson, Sebastian Stan, and three gentlemen named “Chris” among its gargantuan cast. The long-awaited movie is set to arrive in theaters on April 27, 2018.
