The Russo Brothers Reveal the Scene From AVENGERS: ENDGAME Which Took a Year to Plan
The Avengers: Endgame directors, The Russo Brothers, brought us the epic end to the Infinity Saga with its final two films. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame were the culmination of over a decade of movies which introduced us to a bunch of superheroes who became like family as they battled the baddies of the universe together.
Endgame was a huge undertaking, as it not only united the Avengers, but every other group of MCU characters we had seen come about in the first three phases. While it was the biggest movie the Russos had made to date, there was one scene in particular that was the most daunting.
The finale of the movie ended with Tony Stark’s funeral. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) gave up his life to save the universe, and he needed a proper sendoff. But the issue with that is that a funeral for the arguable head of the avengers would require every Avenger, plus Tony’s closest friends and family, being in the same place at the same time. This makes for a huge shoot, and it also heightens the probability of spoilers being revealed to awaiting fans.
The Russos explained on the podcast Smartless (via Cheatsheet):
“That took a year of planning. We referred to it as the wedding. It took us a year to plan that and get all those people together. We had a couple of months to plan out that shot. We rehearsed that shot. We scouted that location multiple times.”
The filmmakers revealed that they filmed the iconic scene on a ranch outside of Atlanta. With every actor bringing their own trailer to the set, the base camp was larger than anything they had ever seen.
“I remember the day that we sent a drone up just to get footage of basecamp that day. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
They went on to say that there were well over 50 trailers at the ranch for the funeral scene. Given how many people were involved in the shot, the directors went to great measures to keep things secret. To prevent any leaks, the directors told the cast that they were filming a wedding scene between Tony and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).
Paltrow was one of the only ones who knew what was really going on, as she needed a little more time to prep for the scene. But for most of the actors who arrived on set, they thought they were going to be filming a celebration. Spider-Man actor Tom Holland is a famous blabbermouth, and has talked about believing that this was a wedding up until seeing the movie at the premiere. But he wasn’t the only one tricked!
It would have been cool to see that scene play out in person! But we can always go back and watch it in the film.
Avengers: Endgame is currently streaming on Disney+