Thor trilogy and Avengers: Infinity War star Idris Elba played it coy when asked about a potential Heimdall resurrection.
“I have no idea. It’s a show about superheroes and guns, who knows,” Elba told Metro.co.uk with a “knowing grin” when asked about returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “It’s been amazing playing in the Marvel family.”
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“I’m sure they decided to get rid of as many characters because they’ve run their natural course,” he added. “I loved playing him, he was my G, my guy.”
The Asgardian all-seer and now-dead guard of Asgard’s Bifrost Bridge was among the first casualties of Infinity War, making a stand against Thanos (Josh Brolin) after the Mad Titan and his clan of children, the Black Order, assaulted a ship carrying Asgard refugees in pursuit of the Space Stone.
Heimdall’s dying act was to magically transport the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to warn Earth, before Thanos impaled the warrior with Corvus Glaive’s blade, killing him. A furious Thor (Chris Hemsworth) promised the warmonger he would “die for that,” later getting his revenge in Wakanda when he impaled Thanos with the newly-forged god-killing weapon Stormbreaker.
Thor’s vengeance resulted in a fatal mistake: the Asgardian Avenger went for center mass instead of Thanos’ head, giving the alien the opportunity to perform a deadly snap — powered by all six assembled Infinity Stones — subsequently erasing half of all life in the universe.
Heimdall’s movie-starting death, followed by the just as traumatic murder of Thor’s half-brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), were among the tragic ends for many of the MCU’s longest-running characters, and newbies like Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland).
“We try to complicate things emotionally because our job as storytellers is to tell the best story we can, and make you experience as many emotions as possible when you watch the film,” Joe Russo, who directed the Marvel blockbuster with brother Anthony, said in a May Q&A. “Because ultimately it is — you’re paying money to go see it and if we can make you laugh, cry, happy, sad and feel catharsis, you get a lot more for your money than just laughing or just crying.”
“We just planted the emotion of it. We love the characters as much as anybody, we think very hard about how the audience feels, [and] how we feel and what can make the scenes complicated as possible, to make it as painful as possible — again, the job of the storyteller,” Russo said.
Avengers: Infinity War is now available to own digitally ahead of its August 14 disc debut. Avengers 4 opens May 3, 2019.