‘Ending is not a scary word’

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‘Ending is not a scary word’

Thursday, 25 April 2019 | AP

‘Ending is not a scary word’

Anyone who saw Avengers: Infinity War knows that the directors weren’t kidding about bringing this saga to a close as Thanos literally dissolved half of humanity, including Spider-Man and Black Panther in an event known as ‘the snap’ that’s inspired tears, memes and more fan theories than the internet can hold

About five years ago, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige found himself on a retreat in Palm Springs plotting the future for the wild, experimental “cinematic universe” that he helped start in 2008. He wanted to do something that they hadn’t done. He wanted an ending.

And after a quick pitch to Robert Downey Jr, he, directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, started plotting a way to bring this saga to a close, brainstorming whenever they had a moment — even in between takes of Captain America: Civil War.

Anyone who saw Avengers: Infinity War knows they weren’t kidding around either. Thanos literally dissolved half of humanity, including Spider-Man and Black Panther in an event known as “the snap” that’s inspired tears, memes and more fan theories than the internet can hold. Talk about a cliffhanger.

Endings are a rarity in the franchise movie-making business; especially when one’s popularity has only multiplied as the movies of Marvel have. But Marvel Studios, which has never shied away from a little rule-breaking, is taking a sledgehammer to that old “don’t leave money on the table” maxim, and audiences will finally be able to see how they do it when Avengers: Endgame opens nationwide today.

“Ending is not a scary word,” Feige said. “It’s a necessary word.”

What exactly that means for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is something of a state secret. Feige said that this will be “definitive,” though.

“People can debate and discuss what that means before they see the movie,” Feige said. “But for us that means bringing to a conclusion the first three phases, the first 22 films in the MCU, so that everything thereafter is a new start.”

So “new” in fact that Feige won’t even discuss what’s to come beyond the July release of Spider-Man: Far From Home. He won’t confirm reportedly in-the-works projects like the Black Widow stand-alone, The Eternals or Shang-Chi, or talk about plans for the 20th Century Fox properties like Deadpool and X-Men that are now under his purview. They have the next five years mapped out; they’re just not letting audiences peek behind the curtain until after Endgame. It’s that big.

“How we leave Endgame will help define where we’re going for many people,” Feige said. But how does one talk about a movie that no press has seen and no actors or creators are allowed to discuss in detail? Well, carefully and cryptically.

It was Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark (Iron Man) who kicked things off for the MCU, and it’s him who opens “Endgame” and most often takes centre stage. Providing even the most basic of plot points in Endgame is a fool’s errand, but it’s fair to say that it takes place some time after the rapture caused by the megalomaniac boulder Thanos (Josh Brolin). Having obtained all six of the “infinity stones,” he wiped away 50 per cent of Earth’s creatures (and superheroes) at the end of Infinity War with the snap of his fingers.

Rather than bask in the extra parking spaces and uncrowded check-out aisles, the survivors have spent the ensuing time in a prolonged state of mourning. The remaining superheroes are also reeling, ashamed of their defeat. One has turned angry and vengeful, another has grown a beer belly. As nauseating as the aura of momentousness around Endgame has been for some, the movie — while certainly not lacking in ominous solemnity — is frequently funny, as the Russos, working from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, arrange their heroes in fresh pairings and unlikely contexts.

That’s owed sizeably to the cast, which sports a number of top-tier comic actors, chief among them Downey Jr, but there’s also the thankfully prominent Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) and Avengers regulars Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Mark Ruffalo (the Hulk). While Marvel has improved in gender parity (Brie Larson’s recently launched Captain Marvel plays a small but pivotal role here) its cosmos could still use some funny actresses. Can Maya Rudolph, please, be made queen of the galaxy?

From the previous outing, we knew some things. That the heroes left like Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor, Hulk and War Machine (Don Cheadle) are dealing with the devastating loss post-snap while trying to figure out what to do with Thanos. A helpful “Avenge the Fallen” campaign served as a reminder of who survived and who didn’t (some of the dusted were even a surprise, like Black Panther’s Shuri). We also know they have a new weapon in Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, who Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury managed to page before dissolving into dust.

Characters die. But it is at least three clown cars worth of superheroes. Seldom, if ever, have more movie stars been brought together in one place; a film with this kind of collection of talent really can’t help but be decent, at minimum.

Filming proved an emotional experience for many of the actors, a lot of whom have now been working together for almost a decade or more.

“I was pretty teary-eyed,” Evans said. “This is the culmination of a really long endeavor. It kind of wraps up the journey for a lot of these characters.”

It led to a lot of reflection, about where they started and how they’ve grown. Johansson noted that she’d been developing her character for 10 years now, and is excited that Black Widow has evolved from a “sexy secretary” type to a more fully realised woman.

“The whole shoot felt pretty nostalgic,” Hemsworth added. “We were constantly talking about when it all started to how we pulled this off and what we were a part of.”

But he also admits he was “kind of happy to get off the set.” An eight month shoot can wear even on Thor.

And indeed the shoot was grueling. The directors, who did Winter Soldier, Civil War and Infinity War said it was the hardest of their life. “This went far beyond anything we’d ever done before,” said Anthony Russo. “There’s a reason why movies aren’t made this way normally.”

But that this was unconventional was also the draw. “I think the only reason we stuck around, is because they were committed to an ending and we’re deconstructionists,” said Joe Russo. “We like to take things apart and see the ramifications of what happens. Winter Soldier the good guys became the bad guys, Civil War, we divorced the heroes, Infinity War, we killed half of them. We like to smash it and look at how you can put the pieces back together.”

And no one, not even Feige, regrets putting the MCU on this one-way path. That’s not to say he never second guesses himself, however.

Two weeks before Infinity War came out he had a moment of panic about the snap. “That ending was one of the reasons why we wanted to make the movie. That’s how we sold it to Disney. We were confident in it,” Feige said. “But then a week or two weeks before the film came out, I went, ‘Oh no. We’re killing all these people. What if the audience totally rejects it?’”

Generous in humor, spirit and sentimentality, Endgame is a surprisingly full feast of blockbuster-making that, through some time-traveling magic, looks back nostalgically at Marvel’s decade of world domination. This is the Marvel machine working at high gear, in full control of its myth-making powers and uncovering more emotion in its fictional cosmos than ever before.

But the main difference is that a dose of finality has crept in to a universe where death is seldom visited on anyone but the bad guys. Endgame will likely be most remembered for its teary goodbyes. To say who would, of course, invite my own demise. But the send-offs, tender and sincere, capture something about the Avengers films. At their root, they are about family. Never has that been more apparent than in the daughters, fathers, sons, mothers, sisters, brothers and spouses that populate Endgame, making up the connections that bind this fantasy realm — one that, for all its turmoil, is far more unified than ours.

Other farewells are more legitimately sombre. The late Stan Lee here makes his final cameo, and it’s a good one. Lee’s swan song, as much as anything, verifies that Endgame marks the end of an era. The conclusion of this chapter in the MCU, of course, won’t last long; Marvel’s assembly lines are already humming. And I suspect it will be some time before we understand just what Marvel has wrought with these movies. At their worst, they are colossal, inhuman products built for a supersized form of binge-watching. At their best, they are grand, mega-sized Hollywood spectacles. It’s not a spoiler to say that Endgame verges more on the latter.

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