Why ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Got the Snap Instead of ‘Endgame’

Avengers: Infinity War ended with a shocking twist: Thanos wins. Thanos attained all six of the fabled Infinity Stones. He used them to adorn the Infinity Gauntlet he forced the dwarf Etri to forge in the heat of the dying neutron-star of Nidavellir. Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to access the powers of each of the six Infinity Stones at the same time. The act may have destroyed the gauntlet and damaged Thanos’ arm, but it allowed Thanos to wipe out half of all life in the universe with a snap of his fingers and leaving the other half to pick up the pieces.

That snap was the culmination of a decade of Marvel Cinematic Universe storytelling, but it wasn’t always meant to be a part of Infinity War. Co-writer Stephen McFeeley tells Empire Magazine that at one point the snap was part of the film’s sequel, Avengers: Endgame. He says, “We had so much story in those early drafts of Infinity War that, if anything, we thought we maybe shouldn’t do The Snap until the end of act one of Endgame.”

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige added, “We talked about that ending for years and years and years. It was the reason to adapt Infinity Gauntlet. What was the most shocking thing we could do? End the movie with The Snap.”

Feige has previously expressed how pleased he is with how the snap turned out, saying, “We did Infinity War and Endgame at the same time, but those have been the longest gestating movies we’ve ever made. Four years now, almost five years. And it was always about delivering on the promise that we had set up. And the way the world received Infinity War was amazing, it was exactly what we wanted.

“And that ending, which we had been working on for many years, and I do remember people, on all of the movies we’ve made and I’m sure on many of the movies we’ll make in the future, whenever the good guy wins, which is often — good guy, good woman, good hero wins — they go, ‘Eh, it’s kind of predictable. Good guy wins. Well, sometimes that’s fun. But for years I remember thinking, ‘I wonder what they’re going to do when they don’t?’ Because we knew that was coming. And it couldn’t have been better. The reaction was the best. The reaction. Was. The. Best.”

What do you think of the snap? Let us know in the comments!

Avengers: Endgame opens in theaters on April 26th.

Captain Marvel is now playing in theaters. Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th.