EXCLUSIVE: If you haven’t been paying attention, you may have missed that Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote this weekend’s Avengers: Infinity War, have actually written every Captain America film including The First Avenger, making Infinity War and Avengers 4 their fourth and fifth films, respectively.

LRM had the chance to speak with these screenwriters of Avengers: Infinity War about their writing process, especially how Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios fit into the equation. First, we asked if Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios put certain limits on McFeely and Markus, or if they were given the freedom to start however they want:

Stephen McFeely: At least at the start. Yeah. That’s been the case for all of it. We sort of start, Chris and I, our entire research and development. Blue sky, anything’s possible. In this case, we gave it a 60 page manifesto, where we just said, here are all the choices. Let’s talk about em. If you circle that, you don’t get this. That kind of stuff. As we all settled in on what we definitely think this is the right way to go and that means we do this and that means we do this, it starts to take shape. That’s what when the big choices get made.

Chris Markus: Your choices eventually have big consequences.

Stephen McFeely: Yeah. And as you see them coming down the train track, you can check in with Kevin and the powers that be. This is leading to a certain spot.

 

LRM then asked if McFeely and Markus if the checklist of Marvel characters they were given left them with any regrets about who they wish they could use, to which McFeely answered:

“It’s not a checklist. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a box, and we request it, but it’s a box of like baseball cards with a little magnet on the back. So we can put them on the wall, and just fill the wall with all the people who are still around in the MCU and are available to us.”

“Then we would start … some people, obviously, are related to Thanos. Or, you know, have a time stone around their neck. Or what have you. Like they would, sort of, demand space in the movie. Then we would start moving them around and putting different combinations together and just giggle. Like, oh, that would be hilarious if those two people met. We got to go do that. That kind of stuff.”

“So, it’s not a checklist. It’s basically a box that eventually people go back into the box. Some people stay on the wall. Eventually you get something that looks like that.”

Avengers: Infinity War is out this Friday, April 27, 2018.

What do you think of McFeely’s and Markus’ writing process in the Marvel Studios system? Think you would want to write a film this size? Let us know in the comment section below!

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