Avengers: Endgame Writers Reveal Why They Decided to Kill Thanos

Given the veil of secrecy that surrounded Avengers: Endgame before its premiere, fans were shocked in the beginning of the film when the Avengers seemingly took down their biggest threat with hours to go. It was a surprising scene as Earth's Mightiest Heroes claimed a minor victory, but were still unable to restore the lives that Thanos took.

Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely didn't know how to deal with the powerful villain Thanos, given that he had all of the Infinity Stones, AND incorporate the messy business of time travel. But the writers had a "eureka" moment when fellow producer Trinh Tran suggested killing Thanos right away.

"Remember, [Thanos] is omnipotent. He is omniscient. It is ridiculous how much power he has at the opening of the movie," McFeely told the Hollywood Reporter, "so for a good solid three weeks, we are trying to figure out, what is movie two with a character with that much power? At one point, I think Trinh Tran, our executive producer, in frustration said, 'God, I really wish we could just kill him.; We all went, 'slow down. What does that mean? That's interesting.' It's absolutely within his character.

"When we asked, 'Why would he let you?' Because he did what he wanted to do. It's strong for him to do that. We've been at it a long time and that's the kind of thing I beat myself up for not thinking of earlier. If I'm being consistent to his character, this is on the table."

Markus added that Ant-Man's inclusion in Endgame made them able to incorporate the time-travel aspect much easier.

"Time travel pops up in your head early in almost any difficult situation. Well, if I travel back in time, this date would have gone much better. Generally in a movie, 'eh, that's way to easy.' We couldn't have Tony just invents a time machine," said Markus. "But delving into Ant-Man, who we hadn't used because he had a movie coming and we didn't want to taint Ant-Man and the Wasp any more than we did at the very end. ... We were planning on Ant-Man because we had access to him in the second movie, and the fact that he was bringing a whole subset of technology that did have something to do with a different concept of time was like a birthday present."

Avengers: Endgame is now playing in theaters.

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