Avengers: Endgame Director Reveals How Massive Actor Salaries Affected the Movie

Avengers: Endgame is earning crazy money at the worldwide box office – but apparently, it had to spend quite a bit of money to make that money. In a new breakdown of Avengers: Endgame by the film’s directors, The Russo Bros., It was revealed that one of the biggest challenges to making both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame was actually finding the money to pay the massive cast of the films!

In talking with THR, Anthony Russo discusses the high cost of paying some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe biggest (read: most expensive) stars for the Infinity War / Endgame production – as well as the list of big stars that made cameos in either or both films:

Anthony Russo: “It was a huge financial issue on this one, and really the way it manifested for us was the fact that we shot these movies back-to-back. The primary motivation to shoot these movies back-to-back like this and to block them was so that we could condense actors’ work so we were basically buying them for a little more than one movie rather than two full movies. Marvel and Disney were able to structure deals with the actors because we were economizing their time commitment by blocking the movies this way. That was the only reason to shoot these movies this way. Of course, there was a huge creative upside for Joe and I, in that we got to tell a story with all these characters and all these wonderful actors. Everything else about blocking these movies together is a downside. It was really difficult. Each of these movies was the most difficult, complex movie we’ve ever made individually and to do them back-to-back together was a really daunting task.”

There’s a lot of implication packed into that quote, once you start to unpack it. First: while the scheduling of Infinity War and Endgame‘s productions were seemingly done to accommodate the cast schedules, it also allowed Disney to cut the cost of actor salaries down to essentially one big film production, instead of two. Second, for all the success The Russos are enjoying in light of Endgame’s release, the undertaking clearly took a lot out of them – arguably too much. The stress of directing a movie is already a massive toll on most directors – taking on two of the biggest blockbuster films of all time would be an unthinkable strain.

Still, with the work and effort now behind them, it’s safe to say that Marvel fans all over the world are more than thrilled with the great sacrifice that the Russo Bros. made. It’s equally true that the Russo Bros. will likely end up looking fondly on this big life struggle, as Infinity War and Endgame‘s respective and collective success will like buy the Russos any kind of career they want, going forward.

Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel are now in theaters. Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 5th.

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