Avengers: Infinity War, arguably the biggest movie of all time (at least until Avengers 4 comes out), is now out on digital and will arrive on Blu-ray Tuesday, August 14th. With the home video release, you now have a chance to bring the epic culmination of 10 years' worth of Marvel's Cinematic Universe home to enjoy whenever you want, whether you like watching 30-odd superheroes battle it out to save the world and the universe, or if you like seeing roughly half of them get snapped into dust. Either way, you have plenty of time to watch Avengers: Infinity War over and over before the untitled sequel arrives on May 3, 2019.

In the meantime, we combed through the entirety of the Avengers: Infinity War Blu-ray for insider info on its production, MCU trivia, and tidbits for the upcoming sequel. For instance, Joe and Anthony Russo and screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus commented that Captain America would have a sizable role in the sequel, that Bruce Banner may get a chance to be more of a hero even without the Hulk, and that Thor's new weapon might just restore the Bifrost Bridge, and that's for starters. As a bonus included in the digital copy of the film, there's an MCU Directors' Roundtable discussion that runs just over 30 minutes long; we pulled plenty of MCU trivia from there as well. (Oh and we have a separate write-up for the film's deleted scenes, too!)

Here's a bunch of things to know, along with where you can find them in the new Avengers: Infinity War Bluray!

avengers-infinity-war-netflix
Image via Marvel/Disney

Intro by the Directors Joe and Anthony Russo (~2 minutes)

  • Quick retrospective from the Russos about shooting both parts of Infinity War along with a ton of behind-the-scenes shots from the production.

Strange Alchemy (~10 minutes):

  • “Strange Alchemy” is a phrase the creative team came up with in the writers’ room. It's not specifically about Doctor Strange, but about which pairings they thought would generate the most tension and interest.

The Mad Titan (~5 minutes):

  • Feige revisits the history of Thanos’ appearances throughout the MCU movies and how he’s orchestrated the events in those stories. He also calls him the greatest villain in the history of the MCU.
  • 2,900 visual effects shots in the movie, according to EP Victoria Alonso

Beyond the Battle: Wakanda (~10 minutes)

  • Trinh Tran, Feige, and the Russos talk about the “most physically challenging thing” they’ve ever done, the battle in Wakanda.
  • A “big ranch in Georgia” was transformed into Wakanda. A river was built into the set and vegetation that’s indigenous to Africa was also brought in, according to VFX Supervisor Dan Deleeuw. Charlie Wood’s art department “carved an artificial river”, as the Russos put it. 30,000 gallon-a-minute pumps were used to keep the river flowing.
  • The Russos worked with Ryan Coogler and his production team to use their maps of Wakanda for the battle.
  • Black Panther cast members talked to the Russos about their battle cries, what they meant, and how they were pronounced. “Wakanda Forever” was a common cry on set whether the cameras were rolling or not, but the production team had no clue how big it would be once Black Panther actually opened in theaters.
  • 70 extras and stunt people were used to form the Wakandan army, which were later filled out with digital extras. There were 10,000 Outriders going against them.
  • infinity-war-trivia
    Image via Marvel
    Fight Coordinator James Young talks about crafting combination attacks and “moments” for the characters that the audience will remember rather than practical choreography.
  • Hemsworth admits that he was hesitant in coming to Infinity War because of what he and Taika Waititi had crafted in Thor: Ragnarok, but the Russos put him at ease.
  • The production crew talks about the challenges of an outdoor location shoot in the Georgia weather, which can be extreme and unpredictable. They called the weather the most challenging part of this particular shoot.
  • The "snap" death scene/sequence was revealed to the cast the morning that they shot it in order to prevent any hints of secrets from getting out.
  • 6,000 crew members all over the world; 3,000 shots with 2,900 visual effects shots. There were over 30 lead cast members, versus 12 for Captain America: Civil War.

Beyond the Battle: Titan (~10 minutes)

  • Feige calls Infinity War the “largest global shoot” they’ve ever had.
  • The Titan sequence took months to plan and was shot exclusive on a soundstage at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • The set was built by production designer Charlie Winter. VFX Supervisor Dan Deleeuw talks about the set’s green screen, which will feature shots from the location work they did in Chile.
  • Executive Producer Victoria Alonso talks about the tons of CG work in Titan. The challenge was to keep the “apocalyptic” look, “the end of an era.”
  • The Russos talk about contrasting the color palette of Wakanda with the reds and oranges of Titan, in part to help them during the editing process but also as a visual guide to the changing scenes.
  • avengers-infinity-war-robert-downey-jr-mark-ruffalo-benedict-cumberbatch
    Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
    The battle between Thanos and Doctor Strange, which was all worked out in previsualization, was twice as long as the final version that appears in the movie. The next step was to add Cumberbatch, because everything else is digitally rendered; this let them send the sequence to the VFX team while they shot the remaining live-action work with Cumberbatch.
  • Normally, big action sequences start with either the stunt team or the VFX team. Stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave spotlights Downey Jr., Tom Holland, and Pratt who are all on-set to shoot the Titan battle sequence.
  • The Thanos vs Iron Man battle is the culmination of six years’ worth of Tony Stark’s nightmares and memories.
  • Peter Parker’s strength as Spider-Man allows him to fight against disintegration longer than others but it ultimately ends the same way. The scene was originally much quicker, but the note that he was Tony Stark’s child who was going away got a much more powerful performance out of Holland.

Gag Reel (~2 minutes):

  • If you’re upset at the end of Infinity War, this is a nice palate cleanser. There’s plenty of silly dances, funny faces, animal interruptions, and cast members trying to make Paul Bettany laugh.

Audio Commentary: (Russo Brothers and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely)

  • That distress call that opens the movie is actually performed by  Thor director Kenneth Branagh
  • They confirmed that the destroyed ship that opens Infinity War is the same ship that Thor and the Asgardians escaped to in Thor: Ragnarok. They also talked about the timing of the scripts, meaning that they didn’t know the end of Waititi’s movie when they scripted Infinity War.
  • avengers-infinity-war-thanos
    Image via Marvel Studios
    High praise for VFX supervisor Dan Deleeuw. Thanos’ VFX was the very first test run they did since the level of difficulty was the highest and the most important for the overall film.
  • Thanos is not using his obtained soul stone in his fight against the Hulk.
  • The opening scene does heavy lifting for a few things: Sets up the stone-collecting plot, establishes a revenge arc for Thor when Loki is killed, and uses the defeat of the Hulk to give him (and Banner) a weakness for once.
  • When Heimdall magically sends Banner to Earth, this is a callback to the first Avengers where Thor says that Odin used all of his dark magic to get him home. People said that was a cheat since the Bifrost was broken, but Heimdall calling upon that magic is used here, reestablishing that magic source.
  • Valkyrie and some of the other Asgardians have indeed escaped the explosion on the arc, though they say to “pray for Korg.”
  • Wong saying, “I wouldn’t say no to a tuna melt,” is one line of dialogue that’s been in the script from the beginning. They tried versions of the story that saw the Avengers going about their daily lives, but with the exception of Doctor Strange and Tony Stark, Thanos moved too fast to make that work.
  • They wrote versions of Thanos attacking Xandar, but it had a similar purpose to what Knowhere has in the current version. Basically the audience knows what happened: “There was a big battle, Thanos got the stone.” They cut it from the script to keep the scene from being repetitive and to keep the stone-collection scenes plot-based and character-based.
  • There was also a version of the script that explained why Tony had a fully charged flip phone ready to call Steve Rogers should he need him, but they used the Central Park scene to get that setup across instead.
  • infinity-war-images-doctor-strange-iron-man-bruce-banner-wong
    Image via Marvel Studios
    The long one-shot when Tony, Doctor Strange, and Banner exit to the New York City street was shot on the lot at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta, using green screens. The actual fight itself moves from the soundstage to an actual Atlanta street, complete with real fire.
  • The creative team jokes that the way they made Tom Holland’s arm hairs stand up wasn’t CG but by “gently blowing on Tom’s ears.”
  • Doctor Strange’s power level, and how advanced it’s become since his solo movie, is discussed here, as is his mystical and spiritual side. “He’s one of the more powerful characters in the Marvel universe.” “I think Strange might know how this is going to work out. I have faith in him.”
  • Rather than fearing fighting Thanos again, the creative team says Hulk’s hesitation is more about being tired of being Banner’s hero.
  • Ebony Maw is inspired a little bit by Marvel's Mephistopheles. The Black Order itself was adjusted to fit the MCU; they found the sub-villains to be too powerful in the comics and adjusted their power sets to line up more with the MCU’s heroes. Maw is technically a “techno-mage” who can move things on a molecular level.
  • The scene in which Maw tries to take the Time Stone from Doctor Strange is a nod back to Indiana Jones. It was also important to Feige and the writers to have Strange try to use the Time Stone but be stopped before he could do so.
  • At most, the movie takes place over two days.
  • “The Rubberband Man” song teases the introduction of the Guardians in this film, who have been traveling around having adventures together for some time.
  • The “Space” title card is a joke/nod back to the Russos’ own penchant for using location title cards.
  • infinity-war-images-thor-star-lord-gamora
    Image via Marvel
    Some of the Guardians scenes, including the scene where they meet with Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and Spider-Man on Titan, were among the first ones shot during production.
  • The decision to place Thor with the Guardians gave him a chance to keep some of his whimsy from Ragnarok.
  • There’s apparently a ton of extra content in the scene in which Thor and Star-Lord are battling egos, but it doesn’t appear in this Blu-ray’s extras.
  • Scarlet Witch and Vision were actually on location in Edinburgh for their scenes in Scotland.
  • Two things to look out for in the Russos’ movies, especially if you're writing a dissertation for film studies: They tend to play with your expectations and subvert them in unexpected ways to keep you guessing, and they find ways to “cripple” the characters who are too powerful to keep them from instantly solving the movie’s problems.
  • In an earlier draft of the script, the Black Order had more stylized origin stories for each member; the marriage between Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight is only hinted at in the movie.
  • Captain America’s introduction was meant to reflect the edgier version of him who’s been on the run for two years. In one draft, the tackling of Corvus Glaive by Captain America to save Vision would have been his first appearance in the movie, happening roughly ¾ or more through its runtime.
  • Alan Silvestri’s Avengers theme is used sparingly in the movie, for example, a scene with Thor and the fight after Captain America’s introduction.
  • The scene in which Thanos destroyed Gamora’s world and then took her as an orphan was in the script from very early on.
  • avengers-infinity-war-gamora
    Image via Marvel Studios
    The reveal of the Soul Stone was intentionally kept until this movie and used as a plot point rather than having its location be somewhere audiences have already been or somewhere random.
  • The Tobias Fünke Nevernude (David Cross) is part of the Collector’s collection when the Guardians bored his facility on Knowhere.
  • Thanos’ early destruction of the Guardians themselves is a nod back to the Jim Starlin comics in which Thanos reduces characters like Nova into cubes.
  • Screenwriter Stephen McFeely pops up next to William Hurt in a cameo scene as Secretary Ross’ aide.
  • The new Avengers compound was a 2,000 square-foot set built by Charlie Wood and his production team.
  • Vision has the same outfit from Civil War, but Rogers’ costume has been desaturated and had most of the iconography taken off of it. The color theory here focused on bringing disparate characters and their palettes together, as well as reintegrating reclusive characters like Steve Rogers back into the real world.
  • The interrogation of Doctor Strange is a nod back to The Marathon Man in which Dustin Hoffman’s character’s interrogator asks, “Is it safe?”
  • The Black Order are also children of Thanos. He dominates planets and then collects those he deems worthy as his elite soldiers.
  • The creative team has seen a lot of online chatter about “Hot Thanos” and straight-up ask if his “nutsack of a chin” is attractive, which is delightful and hilarious.
  • Rocket may have hidden the replacement eye he gives to Thor somewhere on (or in) his body…
  • The writers struggled to figure out where to place the ax that Thor would seek out. The scene of the forge on Nidavellir allows for more of Thanos’ cruelty to play out, along with a test for Thor to prove his worth.
  • To visually keep everyone in the production on the same page, Charlie Wood and his team drew specific environments in development with lighting effects from cinematographer Trent Opaloch and VFX supervisor Dan Deleeuw as references used all the way through post-production.
  • Thor’s quest for the ax proved a challenging sequence to edit along with the rest of the film in terms of timing it so that Thor arrived at the moment of maximum potential.
  • The return of Red Skull organically fit the need in the script for a Stonekeeper.
  • The creative team sees the death of Gamora as the end of Act 2, not because it’s the dark point for the audience or the heroes, but because it’s the dark point for Thanos, and this is his story.
  • Thanos floating in a cosmic area after receiving the Soul Stone was an original concept from storyboard artist Todd Harris.
  • Peter Dinklage’s character was turned into a giant by matching lenses, swapping characters, and lining up the shots correctly for scale. “It required the most math and science of anything we did in the film.”
  • The creative team learned about the Wakanda battle chants from the cast of Black Panther, which wasn’t in the original script. Winston Duke was trying to get all the actors warmed up by doing war chants off camera when the Russos heard it and decided to add it to the script.
  • During a test screening, an audience member called the Outriders “Space Dogs”, so now Rocket refers to them as “Space Dogs” in the movie.
  • infinity-war-images-captain-america
    Image via Marvel Studios
    The rules and design of the Nidevellir forge was redone a number of times, all the way through post in order to get it to work correctly.
  • Dinklalge’s character states that the ax could conceivably control the Bifrost, “in theory,” the creative team says.
  • Other drafts of the script spent more time on Thanos’ perfect version of Titan instead of this destroyed version.
  • Thanos has to close his fist in order to use one or all of the stones, which is pretty much the only weakness that Thanos has in this movie.
  • Doctor Strange uses the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak spell to partially restrain Thanos.
  • When Mantis has her hands on Thanos’ head and is reading his emotions, Pom Klementieff had to be lowered down on ropes to interact with a foam Thanos head that was supported above Josh Brolin, who had his facial performance recorded by cameras for the scene. Brolin also needed Thanos-sized foam arms for the other actors to interact with.
  • Thanos uses the Power Stone to destroy the moon and the Space Stone to pull it down to the surface of Titan.
  • The battle in Wakanda between Vision and the Black Order took place on a horse farm outside of Atlanta in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity.
  • Banner’s arc allowed him to play the hero without the use of the Hulk in this movie, though how that changes from here on out remains to be seen.
  • “Some characters are going to be better served in the second story. I think it’s okay to say that Cap has a big story in the second one.”
  • infinity-war-trivia
    Image via Marvel
    “The Raven”, the 1963 film from Roger Corman starring Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Jack Nicholson, is referenced in the battle between a nearly fully powered Thanos and a Doctor Strange at his best.
  • Storyboard artists, or possibly the visual effects team, had the idea of hiding the Time Stone in the stars.
  • A reminder that Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, had powers born of the Mind Stone in Loki’s Scepter before it was used to give life to the android Vision, and she’s the only one who can destroy them both, were it not for Thanos’ Time Stone control.
  • The creative team commits to Thanos being transported into a “dream state” inside the Soul Stone to meet with the spiritual representation of Gamora, in Soul World. (Then they double back and ask whether it’s a fever dream, whether she really exists, or if it’s all in his mind.)
  • The scarecrow made of Thanos’ armor is on his little plot of land at the end of the movie.
  • VFX houses Digital Domain worked on Thanos, WETA did the fight on Titan, and ILM did the fight on Wakanda. The process involves them coming up with blocking shots, which the directors have to approve before it moves to “baking” which can take several weeks for each revision. Each of the passes are done on every shot and take into account all aspects of those sequences.
  • Ludwig Göransson’s Black Panther score is used in Infinity War. The Russos worked with him on Community and he’s also Childish Gambino’s producing partner.
  • The push-in on Nick Fury's post-credits scene, in which Samuel L. Jackson did say the full “Motherfucker” line, was done about a dozen times on set; the crew cracked up every time.
exit-west-russo-brothers
Image via Marvel Studios

Bonus with Digital Copy: The Directors’ Roundtable (~33 minutes) 7 MCU Directors: Jon Favreau, Ryan Coogler, James Gunn, Peyton Reed, Joss Whedon, Anthony and Joe Russo, with a special appearance by Taika Waititi

  • Favreau talks about his brush with comic book movies back in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. He can be seen in this clip as part of Bruce Wayne’s entourage.
  • Favreau talks about the success of Elf putting him on the map, which led to the Iron Man
  • Transformers convinced him that hard surfaces could look good in CG. Russo and Favreau talk about the rise of CG filmmaking paired with landing Robert Downey Jr. and the excellent, spot-on casting from there.
  • All of the directors attended the premiere of Black Panther.
  • Coogler, still in film school at the time, was at the Arclight when Favreau and Downey Jr. were hopping from theater to theater to see how people were reacting to the first Iron Man in 2008.
  • Waititi joins from Prague over a tablet, though his robotic stand-in is still well-dressed.
  • The directors were curious to know how Disney/Marvel let Waititi go “Full Taika” and they say that Gunn opened that door up a little.
  • Waititi’s pitch was like Big Trouble in Little China, where all Jack wants is to get his truck back. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor is always the one asking the questions about where they are and what’s going on.
  • Whedon talked about reading Marvel Comics as a kid and seeing artists like Gene Colan take over; the core character was still the same but there was a refreshing and unique take, which is how he compared Taika and others’ work in the MCU to pre-established characters.
  • chris-evans-russo-brothers-the-gray-man-netflix
    Image via Marvel Studios
    Favreau confirms that Kevin Feige was on board with the idea of doing away with the secret identities and the Nick Fury stinger; Whedon talks about Feige okaying the shawarma scene, which opens up a conversation about Feige being good with changing or adding things on the fly.
  • Whedon talks about filming the shawarma scene after the press rounds for Avengers. Chris Evans had a beard, so they had to overlay a fleshy make-up patch which looked Dick Tracy-esque.
  • Favreau cites the first Guardians as being more comedic, but Gunn says that Thor: Ragnarok is the first one he considers a comedy.
  • Gunn’s first draft of his screenplay, which he thought was too funny, got some commentary from Whedon: “Make it more James Gunn.” That led to things like the 12% scene with the Guardians.
  • Coogler came on to direct Black Panther when Captain America: Civil War was already in post-production, so he came into a movie with a lead actor who was already cast by someone else. He thanks the Russos for being “competent” enough to know their character and their lead.
  • Coogler talks about his chance to meet Francis Ford Coppola. The acclaimed director cited “Brigadoon” and the Persian story “Shahnameh: Book of Kings” as sources of inspiration that Coogler should check out.
  • Gunn talks about Rocket Raccoon as a Frankenstein’s monster allegory, a “seed from which the entire story grew.” The Russos comment on pairing this character, who can’t emotionally connect with anyone, with someone like Thor who has lost everything.
  • The post-credits scene for Thor on Iron Man 2 was shot by Branagh; that reveal was part of the conversation about how the individual writers and directors do their own thing, which is shaped into the overall MCU structure at it rolls on.
  • ant-man-and-the-wasp-paul-rudd-giant-man
    Image via Marvel Studios
    Reed talked about the fact that the Russos got the Giant Man reveal in Captain America: Civil War rather than his sequel.
  • Wasp almost appeared in both Avengers and Captain America: Civil War.
  • Wakanda was going to be in Avengers: Age of Ultron; Whedon says they referred to it as “Wakinda” and then they scrapped the idea.
avengers-infinity-war-imax-poster
Image via Marvel Studios, IMAX