'Avengers: Infinity War' Early Drafts Didn't Kill As Many Characters

Avengers: Infinity War racked up a significant death toll by film's end, but Marvel writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed that wasn't always the case.

The two Marvel writers sat down to discuss all things Infinity War, and during that discussion, Collider asked if there were any heroes who were supposed to die that ultimately didn't. While they joked about being bloodthirsty, they did reveal that if anything they added to the death count as opposed to subtracting.

"Um, no it was more the reverse that some people in earlier drafts made it to the next movie and we decided that we didn't have enough story for them and so they...disappeared," McFeely said.

As to who those characters were, the duo did not say, but odds are there was a reason they didn't make the cut. If a character like Captain America, for instance, didn't get a load of screentime in Infinity War, you can bet they will make up for that in Avengers 4.

"We had so many characters in movie 1, and we knew it was a two-movie conversation," McFeely said. "Some characters were better served in movie 2 after this event. We were making some choices based on some characters we knew were going to leave us at the end of the first movie, so they got highlighted in the first movie. And some who were going to be in the second movie more maybe got less attention or less screentime [in Infinity War] — I'm thinking of Cap and Natasha, specifically. It's about the story we wanted to tell in movie 2, mostly."

After Thanos' universe changing snap, the heroes that are left consist of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, War Machine, Rocket Raccoon, Okoye, M'Baku, Nebula, Wong, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and Shuri. Hawkeye and Ant-Man weren't seen in Infinity War, but will likely have substantial roles in Avengers 4, which looks to have some sort of time travel element involved.

Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters now. It will be followed by Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.