‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Producer on Snap Victims’ Futures, Shocked Reactions

Plot points in Avengers: Infinity War were as shocking for its massive ensemble cast as they were for audiences, but each surprise had a great reason behind it.

Major spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War follow!

By the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos had achieved his goal of wiping out half of the universe with the snap of his fingers. More than half of the film’s main heroes went down with it, such as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Star-Lord, Scarlet Witch and several more. For the actors portraying snap victim characters, the fate wasn’t revealed until the morning of production on set. Needless to say, they were shocked.

“We were meticulous about each of the characters and spent a lot of time discussing how each character’s death would affect future films,” Avengers: Infinity War producer Trinh Tran told ComicBook.com. ‘”The snap’ was always part of our story discussions from go. We all agreed Thanos needed that iconic moment, and definitely used the comics as a reference point. We had Brolin, in mocap, snap his finger on the day. Many other filmmaking aspects went into creating the iconic moment. The build-up to the snap was just as important as the snap itself.”

When it came time to inform the cast members and let the snap spoilers out of the bag, there was a mixed bag of reactions.

“The reaction of our talent when they found out they would be blipped on the morning of shooting the actual scene,” Tran said. “We made a decision early on in production that we were going to be diligent about the spoilers of the film, so there were no copies given out of any of the big moments in the film just in case something happens to it. It was decided that we’d reveal, in person, to the talent that morning that some of them would not survive at the end of the film, so it was a little nerve-wracking to get the responses. Sad, surprised, etc.”

Tran — along with the film’s other producers, directors and writers — was one of very few people to have knowledge of how Infinity War would end all along.

“Producers monitor every aspect of production and are generally in the know on all matters. The job demands it,” Tran said. “The core creative group – writers, producers and directors – hold the keys to all that is going-on. From there, it’s a matter of just being careful how far the information gets out and at what time. We were very protective of these two films. They are our biggest endeavor at the studio and we wanted to preserve the information and not have anything spoil the fun out of discovering it for the first time in theater with the audiences.”

Avengers: Infinity War is now available on digital HD and will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on Aug. 14.