AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR Writers Say Avengers are Supporting Characters to Thanos

I am excited like crazy for Avengers: Infinity War and am sad I probably won’t see it opening night because I’ll be moving. I am also enjoying reading theories about who is going to die (here’s my list), where the Soul Stone is, etc. With it just over a month away from theaters, people are interviewing anyone and everyone who worked on the project that they can find. Io9 recently interviewed the writers, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, who explained that not only would Thanos be the villain, but he’d be the main character of Infinity War. We already knew that he and Thor were going to have the most screen time in the film, but when I heard that, I thought Thor would be the main character in this film. McFeely explains:

“In many ways, it’s Thanos’ movie...Very often, in the screenwriting weeds, we’re trying to get a character up and off the ground and so the bad guy tends to be a foil for the development of the hero. That’s not the case here. If anything, it’s the opposite. Our heroes are foils for the villain, whose story we need to tell at large.”

It’s great that Marvel is trying hard to give us great villains. Erik Killmonger was an amazing villain and one of the best that the MCU has seen. Hopefully, Thanos will be the best after Infinity War. In addition to talking about focusing on Thanos, McFeely and Markus mention that they worked on raising the stakes in this film:

“Every time you collect [a stone], it can’t just be a check mark. It has to do something characterful. It’s got to move the plot forward but it also has to [have] stakes and cost for characters at the time, so that it’s not just a shopping spree. I think we’ve done that and boy, we’re going to wrench some emotion out of each and every one of those moments that we can.”

Will Thanos be the best villain in the MCU? What are these stakes that everyone is talking about? Avengers: Infinity War opens in theaters April 27, 2018.