‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Director Joe Russo Talks About The Black Order

Josh Brolin Thanos Avengers Age of Ultron

Avengers: Infinity War will finally show Thanos get off of his gold-plated butt and challenge the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe to the greatest battle that they’ve ever seen, but he’ll be doing it with a bit of help. Joe Russo describes what the Children of Thanos – based on the Black Order from the comic books – are going to bring to the table, why they’re involved with the story, and why one of the characters in the comics isn’t going to show up.

ComingSoon got to talk with Russo about the four new villains that will be apearing in the Marvel mega-crossover. Russo specifically cites Infinity, the event that these characters were created for, as being a big inspiration for their inclusion in this series:

“We get inspired by a lot of different material when we’re working on the movie. We pulled from both Infinity runs for this, and look, there are a scary bunch of characters who I happen to think, when I read the Infinity run, were super cool. And when I got the opportunity to make this movie, I said I have to do the Black Order. You know, we have so many characters and Thanos needs to be teased out. You can’t have the characters challenging him every step of the way. There has to be characters that they have to go through to get to him. The Black Order is the perfect cast of characters to do that with.”

When pressed on the absence of one of the Black Order’s key members – specifically, Supergiant – and why the character is missing from the film, Russo also explained that the character isn’t a part of the cinematic cadre of supervillains was a decision on his and his brother Anthony’s part to prevent the movie from being overcrowded:

“One of them wasn’t there! Again, we are dealing with so many characters that we made some choices along the way. Consolidation seemed like a smart thing to my brother and I because they were starting to overlap each other. And frankly, when you see the movie you’ll understand, it services the storytelling.”

That doesn’t rule out the possibility of Supergiant making an appearance in Avengers 4, though. Russo also mentioned that he is specifically interested in seeing how the power sets of each of these villains will play off against the various powers that our heroes have – much like how the heroes that fought each other in Captain America: Civil War were paired with each other specifically based on the needs of the story. That’s definitely a good way of approaching things, considering that it’d get really boring if the movie were 150 minutes of heroes trying to fight Thanos one-on-one and repeatedly getting their butt kicked. In any case, Avengers: Infinity War is shaping up to be an epic movie, and these supporting villains will help provide some stunning action sequences.

Avengers: Infinity War will be released on May 4, 2018, and has a cast that includes Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark (Iron Man), Chris Evans as Steve Rogers (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner (Hulk), Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch), Paul Bettany as the Vision, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill (Star-Lord), Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautisa as Drax the Destroyer, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Vin Diesel as Groot, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, Tom Holland as Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier), Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa (Black Panther), Paul Rudd as Scott Lang (Ant-Man/Giant Man), Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Benedict Wong as Wong, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Tom Hiddleston as Loki Laufeyson, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Benicio Del Toro as Taneleer Tivan (Collector), Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw, and Josh Brolin as Thanos.

Source: Coming Soon