‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Director Explains Why the Black Order Had Such Little Screen Time

Avengers: Infinity War featured little of the Black Order because the Marvel blockbuster was already populated by a large cast of superheroes, co-director Joe Russo told students during a Q&A at Iowa City High School.

“I think people have been waiting 10 years to have the Marvel heroes together in a 2-and-a-half hour film,” answered Russo.

“So if I started to go into the history of them — that’s a whole other movie all together. I felt like they did their jobs in the film. And the audience got enough of them in the film — as much as they needed them in the film.”

The limits of a single film prevented directors Joe and Anthony Russo from explaining too much about the Black Order, who are expanded upon in the Marvel comics.

“As much as I like those characters, and as much as I like the comic books, I feel that if I started delving into their backstory it would become unwatchable,” Russo said. “[There are] only so many characters you can keep in your head.”

Asked why the Black Order were killed off “pretty easily,” Russo said the foursome couldn’t overshadow their villainous father, Thanos (Josh Brolin).

“Thanos is the true bad guy of the movie,” Russo said. “You don’t want the sub-villains overshadowing the supervillain.”

“And we want to save him for the final showdown between him and the heroes,” he added. “They weren’t easy to dispatch all of them — it certainly took a few nasty fights.”

A complete break down of screen time per character reveals each member of the cabal appears for less than five minutes, with Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) appearing on screen for the longest at 4 minutes, followed by Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon) and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary) at 3:45 minutes, and just three-and-a-half minutes for Corvus Glaive (Michael James Shaw).

The directors revealed Infinity War‘s expansive cast of characters and the size of production — Marvel Studios’ biggest yet — had the film spending upwards of half a million dollars per day. The unexpected costs pushed film, already boasting a price tag in the neighborhood of $300 million dollars, over budget.

Disney-owned Marvel Studios has made out handsomely as Infinity War has become the fastest film to reach the $1 billion dollar milestone worldwide to become the 15th highest-grossing film of all time, a chart it will continue to climb as the blockbuster has a chance at pulling in $2 billion globally to enter the top five biggest earners in history.