Avengers: Endgame Directors Expain Five-Year Time Jump

Avengers: Endgame surprised moviegoers when it saw a massive time jump in its first act. After the Avengers realized there was no way to stop Thanos or undo his actions from Avengers: Infinity War, they had back to Earth to grovel and grieve. The directors, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, saw no reason to show the heroes going through their stages of grief but, instead, send them straight into their next steps.

"We wanted something that allowed them to change enough," Joe Russo tells Business Insider. "We needed enough time for them to process their grief that it would alter them as people."

The characters were at a drastically different point in their loss. "They were past the immediate grieving period" Anthony Russo added.

"They accepted it and made choices about how they were going to proceed with their future, and that changes people," Joe Russo adds. "Clearly, Banner has changed dramatically." As the story goes, Captain America was outwardly looking on the bright side like whales surviving in the Hudson River while, on the inside, he was really searching for a solution.

Meanwhile, characters like Tony Stark were given a reason not to want to change everything which happened in the past five years. "It gave Tony enough time to have a daughter he can interact with," Anthony Russo said.

Then again, some characters were in need of rescuing, themselves. "Thor became increasingly depressed and isolated," Joe Russo points out. "So one year wouldn't have allowed for quite the effect and five makes it feel more permanent to the audience." As it turns out, Thor was one of the most difficult characters work with in production due to his physical changes.

"Chris Hemsworth did have to wear a bodysuit for that [Thor] role. We had to toggle back and forth," Anthony Russo said. "While we were shooting Endgame where he was heavier we had to do some pickup shots for Infinity War, so he would have to go back and forth between those two looks. So he had to wear a bodysuit, and it was quite heavy. That suit started to wear on his back, which was scary when you have someone who has to be so physical."

What do you think of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now being set so many years in the future? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram or Twitter! or more answers to your Avengers: Endgame, watch ComicBook.com's Game Over: An Evening With Joe Russo in the video above.

Avengers: Endgame is now playing in theaters.