The Russo Brothers Answer Avengers: Endgame Questions From Twitter

Hi, I am Joe Russo.

And, I'm Anthony Russo,

and we directed Avengers: Endgame.

And, yes, we are still talking about it.

[laughs] And we're here to do Avengers Support.

[heavy beat music]

blue @blueblogz.

So a baby born a few days before the snap that vanishes

during the snap is technically now five years old, right?

But it's still a newborn because it didn't age

during the five years it vanished.

Also, is Spiderman 20 now?

Did he age?

It's been five years.

Yeah, so anybody who did go away at the snap,

when they come back, they come back at the moment

they went away.

So they sort of miss those five years

while everybody who didn't go away

was aging those five years like we all normally do.

So you wouldn't age if you were zapped out of existence.

You would just stop existing.

And then when you were brought back,

you would begin existing again.

So, no, the baby would not be five years older.

The baby would just be the exact same age

it was when it disappeared.

Hence, Tom Holland, his Peter Parker character would be

the same age that he was when he disappeared.

Why five years?

Why not 10?

Why not five months?

What's the significance?

[claps] Basically, we wanted to pick a period of time

that was long enough to have forced everybody to move on.

You could no longer sort of be clinging to

what we should have done,

how we should have done it differently.

Maybe we can go back and stop this.

We wanted everybody to go through a lifecycle

where they had to really commit to an existence

where this was their new reality.

And five years just seemed like

the right amount of time for that.

This is from needy unemotional @samm_keeton.

Question 44, why did they not show

how Bruce merged his brain with Hulk's movie?

We wanted to track how every single one of the Avengers

was moving forward from the experience of Infinity War.

And Banner had this very unique experience where he,

in the opening of Infinity War he loses to Thanos as Hulk.

Later in the film he loses to Thanos as Banner.

And so he is left with this reality that, you know,

neither version of himself could stop Thanos.

So in the five year time elapse that happens

early on in Endgame, he sort of dedicates himself

to trying to better himself

so that this never happens again,

and that's sort of the proper motivation for him

to finally figure out to reconcile the two sides of himself.

Okay.

That was just our specific needs for the story.

Now you have this incredible action-figure.

It's got some good flex.

Okay, Quick question.

How do you return a soul stone?

It's not like Black Window's soul will be floating around

or going back to her body.

And, also, what was Captain America's reaction

to seeing Red Skull again?

This is from Moses @xinyx [mutters].

You get an email, like you do on Amazon,

and then you have to print up a label,

put it on the stone, stick it the mail,

goes back to Red Skull. Keep your fingers crossed.

Keep you fingers crossed.

Yeah, so seeing Red Skull again, I don't know.

That's a good question.

Cap may, hopefully, Cap will remember him.

Alex Gross, Why did you kill Tony Stark?

Pass.

[laughs]

Victor Stone Meanmuggin, Hold on.

Hulk has a whole healing factor.

Why didn't his arm heal?

The Hulk [laughs] has never come up against

every infinity stone in a gauntlet,

and the pure power of the stones.

Thanos is nearly invisible,

and then he did not heal either.

Clearly, when you wield the full power

of the infinity stones, it is irreparable damage

to your being.

If it doesn't even kill you.

Yes.

Alright, let's settle this once and for all.

Who is the most powerful Avenger?

There seems to be some sort of poll here

where Scarlet Witch got 23%.

Captain Marvel got 6%, mm.

Thor got 19%.

And the kid from Iron Man 3, 52%.

Correct.

Jeff Fogel, How do you decide what to keep

directly from the comics and what to use as inspiration?

A lot of it is what you emotionally respond to in the books,

how you feel about the character.

There's no sort of formula to why

we would pull something from the books.

It's really just inspiration.

It's like with Winter Soldier, we loved the tone

of the original run of the books.

So we used that tone in the movies.

Sometimes we'll find a panel that we love,

and then we'll try to build a moment around the panel

like we did in Civil War.

But it's impossible to sort of define

any sort of scientific approach to it.

Yeah, often times, sometimes there's something

that we like in the books that doesn't translate cleanly

to a modern day movie,

and we find another way to interpret it.

This is Garrett51 @amazing_garrett.

I feel like the whole reason Professor Hulk was introduced

was to force @MarkRuffalo in a mocap suit

more as a punishment for leaking spoilers

by @Russo_Brothers.

This is a very interesting theory.

It may be true, but we'll never admit to it being true.

Cat, So who wants to sit for six hours

and watch both Avengers movies back-to-back

with me to catch Easter eggs?

Not us.

[laughs]

We've seen them too many times.

@Russo_Brothers, serious question.

When Doctor Strange is seeing all of the scenarios

for how the war could end, does he see it

like a montage or a movie?

How do you as the creators

see this happening in his brain?

This is a great question. Technical.

Strange has to exert an immense amount of energy

to go into this state.

The amount of time that he's in this state,

as we know from the history in his own stand-alone film,

Doctor Strange, he could be in that state

for who knows how long.

So it could've taken Strange an immensely long time

to actually review all of these scenarios.

He's to physically live them,

and then die in each of them,

and then right before he dies, he has to reset it,

as we saw at the end of Doctor Strange,

and do it again,

and take copious notes each time he does it.

Great question though, Marissa, thank you.

Hey, Russo Brothers.

What happened to the Vision's body?

That's a good question.

Yeah, it is a very good question.

Feels like a story for another time.

Yeah.

Curvyllama has an incredible Twitter handle.

If you could be one Avenger, who would it be and why?

Powers, good looks, personality?

Respond with GIFs.

Mine would be female Thor.

Funny, witty, kind, carefree, powerful, badass.

That's very accurate description.

Yeah, I think, I'd take Spiderman

as my favorite character growing up.

I think any kid would wanna swing on webs

or crawl walls.

And I love his suit.

I'll take Falcon.

Because I am really interested in what his future

as Captain America will be.

Shawn Endo.

Hey, Russo Brothers.

I thought the Avengers weren't supposed to talk

about the future in the past.

So why did Professor Hulk talk about Strange

giving the time stone to Thanos to the Ancient One,

without conscience, may I mention?

[laughs]

That is a Back to the Future rule

that is not applicable in our universe.

We're playing by a different set of rules.

Watch the scene again with Hulk,

Rhodey, and Paul Rudd as Scott Lang,

and just listen to how they describe the rules

of time travel in our movie.

There's two scenes that play back-to-back sort of describe,

gives you everything you need to know about time travel

in this film.

You may be thinking about the fact that Doctor Strange

doesn't want to tell Tony about what timeline they're in

as they're going into the climatic fight with Thanos.

The difference between these two situations

are when smart Hulk is talking to the Ancient One,

the Ancient One is no longer alive

during the events that they are discussing.

Whereas, Tony is very much involved in the events

that he and Strange are talking about.

There's a little bit of a distinction there.

And that's just really talking to someone about,

just prior to their death,

you don't want to emotionally confuse them

or create a situation where they no longer

want to go through with what they're supposed go through.

Especially when your chances are one in 14 million.

You have to be very, very careful about not messing it up.

[taps foot]

Daniel Richtman.

As much as I loved Infinity War,

just re-watched it again,

the consistency with characters' power level

is all over the place.

Scarlet Witch and Vision,

two of the most powerful Avengers, lost to two aliens,

and were saved by Captain America and Black Widow

who are human.

What?

[laughs]

Vision gets skewered at the very beginning of that fight.

So he's really not functionally at full power.

He then becomes a liability in the fight

because now Scarlet Witch has to protect a crippled Vision,

and it puts her at a disadvantage.

And as Vision mentions that weapon sort of has an affect

on him that he didn't expect.

Once Vision and Wanda are cornered,

because Vision can't function at that point,

Cap and Natasha and Falcon have been functioning

as a unit for three years since Civil War,

a very tight unit.

Is it three years or two years?

Since Civil War is two?

I think it was two.

They surprise attack Proxima and Corvus,

get the jump on them,

and help Vision and Wanda escape.

That's how that scene played out.

Yeah,

and those are powerful aliens.

But not when you sneak up on them.

Why did you just delete a scene like this?

Ja-fok-kakaka-cow-canal-cos, [Anthony laughs]

are you crazy or what?

Tony deserved it.

They're asking why we deleted the scene

where everyone is kneeling.

We deleted it.

This is a scene in the bonus features on the home release.

And that's why we deleted it.

So we had some bonus features for the DVD release.

Because that's really important.

Super important.

Next question.

Shannon Rona,

I hope one day the @Russo_Brothers see my dedication

to Tony Stark and Pepper Pots.

This is just from 2018, and all handmade.

We're seeing it, and it's incredible.

And you're amazing.

Yeah.

And thank you for being such a huge fan

of Tony and Pepper Pots.

You know what confused me while watching Endgame?

The fact that there are two Barton daughters.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong,

but both of Joe Russo's kids got to be in the movie.

One was Lia Barton, I believe.

And one was

Lila.

But both never shared screen time.

Yes, both my daughters were in the movie.

One of them did play Lila Barton

at the beginning of the film.

She was snapped out of existence.

The other played a fan of the Hulk in the diner.

They're completely unconnected characters.

They do look a little bit alike.

So maybe that was confusing.

But they are not--

Do you think she may have been credited as Lia

in the credits?

But not as Lia Barton in the credits.

So this is just a random kid hanging out in a diner

who happens to see the Hulk and wanted his autograph.

And just happens to share a resemblance to--

Lila Barton. Bart, yes.

Alright, Nicolas Bauer.

Russo Brothers, how come Peter Parker's friends

didn't age in Avengers: Endgame?

I understand why Peter didn't age,

but five years went by for everyone else.

In what should be 2023, we see Pete reunite

with Ned at school, surrounded by kids with backpacks.

Did I miss something?

Well, yes.

Ned also went away.

Anybody who was still the same age as Peter Parker

went away as well.

Kids with backpacks in that school are all kids

who went away and are now back at school.

Or kids who were nine years old when the snap happened,

and now they're freshmen.

Have you seen the new Spiderman movie?

Explains it.

Thicc, My one problem with Endgame

is that Falcon got the shield.

Why didn't Bucky get it?

Mm.

Falcon is an amazing character

who's certainly very deserving of the shield.

Yep, and Bucky.

Look at, the thing we've loved exploring about Bucky

is he has a very complicated history.

He has a damaged mind.

I don't know you wanna hand a very powerful weapon

to somebody who is vulnerable like that.

Macho-Mayne, Russo Brothers, How do you guys not have

any Nova Corp member in a fight against Thanos?

Love the movie, but just boggles my mind.

Didn't even have to be Richard Rider.

I'd look closely at that scene again, and you will see--

There are thousands of people there.

You will see Richard Rider in the background of a shot.

Easter egg.

Everyone, thank you so much.

These were great questions.

Yes. Yeah.

Sending in these questions, really appreciate it.

And, hopefully, you got satisfactory answers.

Yep,

and, hopefully, you have answers of your own.

See ya.