I went to a T.I. concert once, and he told me (well, the whole crowd) that haters are only going to hate if youâve got something for them to hate on. So thanks, T.I., for basically writing the beginning of this article. Because the line sums up perfectly whatâs been happening with âAvengers: Infinity Warâ this year.
The latest Marvel installment has earned around $2 billion at the box office and ecstatic praise from its hordes of fans â all serving as an incentive for the aforementioned haters. But thereâs one thing the critics keep coming back to, and it has to do with the movieâs ending.
Warning: Spoilers for âAvengers: Infinity Warâ below!
The filmâs ending wiped out half the residents of the universe â including a lot of your favorite superheroes like Spider-Man, most of the Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther â but many of those characters have sequels that are on the way.
I loved âInfinity War.â I loved it so much I want to marry it. I too, however, can be counted among the ending-aggrieved haters; I previously wrote about how the Marvel masterminds basically lied to us about the permanency of the filmâs deaths.
âDeath is death,â âInfinity Warâ writer Stephen McFeely told me in an interview before the premiere. âIf we say goodbye to some characters, we will say it permanently,â he added later.
Uh, âSpider-Man 2,â âGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3â and âBlack Panther 2â beg to differ, dude. Plus, some of the actors whose characters supposedly died have already confirmed that theyâre coming back in âAvengers 4â and other sequel movies.
My colleague Matt Jacobs laid out his beef with the deaths in an essay titled âThe End Of âAvengers: Infinity Warâ Is What Happens When Money Writes Moviesâ:
Marvel Studios is a business first (owned by Disney) and a story factory second. And because itâs a business, we know how many movies certain actors are contracted for and which ones have sequels already in development. That includes some whose characters supposedly went bye-bye.
We said our piece, and now the âInfinity Warâ directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, are responding.
I asked the Russo brothers for their thoughts on the criticism â and about the fact that weâll see dead characters coming back in sequels â but they stuck to their guns.
âHereâs the thing, I think itâs important to remember anything is possible in the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe],â Anthony said. âJust because thereâs a sequel on the books doesnât mean ... people become accustomed to time moving linearly in the MCU. That doesnât necessarily have to be the case. Thereâs a lot of very inventive ways of where the story can go from here.â
Joe agreed, reiterating the idea that the movies donât need to happen in chronological order.
âThereâs four years between âGuardians 2â and âInfinity War.â Thatâs a long time, and a lot of âGuardiansâ stories to tell. Again, as Anthony said, donât expect everything to move forward in a linear fashion in the Marvel universe.â
OK, some of what the directors said is going to come true sooner rather than later. Marvelâs next two films, âAnt-Man and the Waspâ and âCaptain Marvel,â both take place before the âInfinity Warâ timeline. But according to some theories, thatâs so both of those movies can establish ground rules for the Quantum Realm dimension â which could bring back dead characters in the future.
If this were the D.C. universe, we could have used Wonder Womanâs Lasso of Truth on the Russos. But also, if it were D.C., Captain America and Iron Man wouldâve probably stopped fighting in âCaptain America: Civil Warâ because their moms have the same name. So we might just be better off waiting.