'Avengers: Infinity War' Directors Considered Including TV Characters

The directors of Avengers: Infinity War once considered including the small-screen characters residing within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While Anthony Russo and Joe Russo's epic superhero ensemble flick was already packed with more than 30 key principal heroes, the Defenders-level heroes and Agents of SHIELD characters almost got pulled into the mix. Ultimately, it was a creative decision made based on the theatrical experience as this film was a culmination of 18 movies and was never intended to bring together loose ends from Netflix or cable.

"We made the briefest consideration of [including TV characters in Infinity War]," Anthony Russo told Variety. "When we're alone in a room with [screenwriters Christopher] Markus and [Stephen] McFeely, we consider every idea. We like thinking of everything. But it seemed like the story that had been told within the movies was so specific and elaborate already that once we started working through the story, we knew we had our hands full just with this set of characters and narratives."

In the mean time, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist are fighting their own battles on the ground level of New York City. On the other hand, the sibling directors never made much consideration of including the Fantastic Four or X-Men characters due to their being owned by Fox.

"I think just as far as where that specific deal is at right now, it's not at the point where we can start working with those characters on a creative level yet," Anthony Russo said. "We'd love to and hopefully it will all work out some day, but it's not in the time frame of these movies that we're making right now."

Such a fact, however, has not stopped the Russo Brothers from having exciting ideas in mind for those Fox characters should they come back to Disney and Marvel Studios for inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are now playing in theaters. Ant-Man and The Wasp is set for release on July 6, 2018. Captain Marvel will follow it on March 6, 2019, with the untitled Avengers 4 set to tie everything about the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a bow on May 3, 2019.

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