‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Director Reveals Why We Don’t See Thanos Get the Power Stone

Avengers: Infinity War was so fast-paced, it intentionally overlooked Thanos obtaining one of the Infinity Stones.

Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War follow. Major spoilers!

With the Power Stone having been locked away on Xandar in the aftermath of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the Mad Titan had the purple rock lodged firmly in his Infinity Gauntlet by the time Avengers: Infinity War began. While the destruction of Xandar to obtain the stone is mentioned, it is never explicitly shown on screen, which was a creative decision behind the scenes.

The sibling directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo were asked about the decision to overlook the moments while talking to a group of high school students. “Because we thought it’d be one too many,” Joe Russo said. “There’s so many stones he has to collect and you get into a trap and we thought — we knew where it was in [Guardians of the Galaxy], so it was easy to deal with it off screen.”

While the scene was not a pivotal moment for the events of Avengers: Infinity War, it is part of the origin story of Richard Rider’s Nova. Given Kevin Feige’s recent remarks regarding the cosmic character from Marvel Comics, the destruction of Xandar might be shown in a later Marvel Cinematic Universe movie.

“Nova is… if we have a big board with a bunch of characters that have more immediate potential, Nova is on that board,” Feige said in the exclusive interview with ComicBook.com. “Because of the connection to the Guardians universe, because there are more than one examples to pull from in the comics that are interesting. And you’re absolutely right, he was in the earliest drafts of the [Guardians of the Galaxy].”

Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are now playing in theaters. Ant-Man and The Wasp is set for release on July 6, 2018. Captain Marvel will follow it on March 6, 2019, with the untitled Avengers 4 set to tie everything about the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a bow on May 3, 2019.

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