The ending of Avengers: Infinity War left many Marvel fans in shock - one by one, their favourite heroes were reduced to dust, literally, after the villainous Thanos came through on his promise and ‘killed’ half the universe’s population with a snap of his fingers.
In a new interview, the film’s visual effects supervisor spoke about the film’s now iconic dust sequence, and why it was chosen as the way in which the heroes die.
VFX Supervisor Dan DeLeeuw said that the dust effect was rooted in story. “The Power Stone was blipping them out of existence,” DeLeeuw told Inverse.
This decision was taken after carefully considering how each Infinity Stone could cause death, and what that death could look like. In the film, Thanos goes on a mission to unite all six Infinity Stones, which, when embedded in the Infinity Gauntlet, have the power to make the wearer the most powerful being in the universe.
“We had concept art combining all those things, and it was getting too busy,” he said. “It became too complicated. It was stepping on what the actors were doing. So it became ‘body turns to ash.’ We peeled away all those layers and focused on that one [Power Stone], deciding how quickly it would consume someone, what pattern it would consume them.”
Infinity War’s ending left a lot open to interpretation, mostly regarding the finality of what fans had just seen. But speaking to Huffington Post in June, the directors of Infinity War and the upcoming fourth Avengers film - Joe & Anthony Russo - had said, “If we say goodbye to some characters, we will say it permanently.”
“Here’s the thing, I think it’s important to remember anything is possible in the MCU,” Anthony Russo told HuffPost, responding to complaints against the film’s ending.
“Just because there’s a sequel on the books doesn’t mean ... people become accustomed to time moving linearly in the MCU. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. There’s a lot of very inventive ways of where the story can go from here.”
However, many fans have seen leaked images from the sets of the fourth film, read the leaked plot synopsis, and dissected quotes by cast members, only to decide that the film will involve some amount of reality bending and time travel, which will most likely result in the resurrection of the dead Avengers.
Infinity War has made more than $2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Marvel movie ever, and only the fourth film in history to cross the coveted $2 billion mark. Avengers 4, billed as a significant conclusion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it, will arrive in May, 2019.