Marvel is gonna walk away from a Golden Goose?
The NY Times, of all places, does a history and future piece on the two guys who put together the “Avengers’ movies….
The 18 movies that preceded “Infinity War” were a risky feat unto themselves: a multihour narrative in which each installment handed off to the next — sometimes elegantly, sometimes awkwardly — and events in previous episodes had lasting effects on those that followed.
Now Marvel is trying something equally unprecedented and potentially far riskier. In “Infinity War” and a subsequent “Avengers” movie that will open in May 2019, the Russos need to seamlessly incorporate dozens of major characters, all while bringing the franchise to a satisfying conclusion.
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Now Marvel says it wants to clear the table it has spent the last 10 years arranging and make way for something new.
“Telling a great story requires a great ending,” Kevin Feige, the Marvel Studios president, said. “When you dedicate yourself to that, it shifts the way you think.”
Audiences are about to find out what finality looks like for a motion-picture money-minting machine: Will the story actually come to a conclusion? Will characters die, and will actors leave the series?
Whatever the answers, they have already been reached with the help of the Russo brothers, two of Marvel’s most consistent and diligent — if not widely recognized — filmmakers.
When they finish their “Avengers” movies, which they shot back to back over 18 months, the Russos will complete their own improbable arc, from indie-cinema oddballs to TV comedy moguls to directors of possibly the biggest franchise in movie history….
image….The many Marvel characters in “Infinity War” include, from left in the foreground, Okoye (Danai Gurira), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). CreditMarvel/Disney