Marvel and Disney dropped an early Valentine’s Day present on us late Friday night. We’ve known that filming on Avengers: Infinity War has been underway in Atlanta for a couple of weeks now, but Marvel is making it official with a pretty great new behind-the-scenes video kicking off the start of production. The first day of filming was on January 23rd, and in the video we see Robert Downey Jr., Chris Pratt, and new Spider-Man himself Tom Holland all together on that inaugural day getting ready to shoot what looks to be part of a space-set set piece.
Downey Jr. remarks that filming will last for a year, which makes sense. Marvel is shooting both Infinity War and the follow-up Avengers movie, the untitled Avengers 4, at the same time so they don’t have to try to assemble this ginormous cast together again in a year or so.
The video is a pretty terrific showcase of some brief behind-the-scenes footage, new concept art (Josh Brolin as Thanos! Avengers meet the Guardians of the Galaxy!), and enticing quotes from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, directors Joe and Anthony Russo, and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Feige teases the epic event thusly:
“Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe as started in May of 2008 with the release of Iron Man 1, and it really is an unprecedented culmination of a series of films interlinked together, which at the time had never been done before. And for us the important thing is making it all come together. We know they’re gonna face Thanos; we’ve been setting that up since Avengers 1. How do you do that in a way that is unexpected, that pits the Avengers against somebody who is more powerful than anyone they’ve faced, and yet make them completely unprepared to face them? Well, tear them apart, which is why we did Civil War before Infinity War… Thanos shows us why he’s the biggest, the best, the baddest villain that we’ve ever had, and the most frightening villain that the Avengers have ever faced.”
Feige goes on to doubly confirm that yes, in Infinity War the Avengers will meet the Guardians of the Galaxy, and it’ll be incredibly interesting to see how the film sets up Thanos since the character has gotten the short-shrift thus far. That won’t last long, as Feige recently revealed that Thanos is essentially the main character of Infinity War.
Take a look at the video below, followed by some screengrabs, then keep in mind that Avengers: Infinity War doesn’t open in theaters until May 4, 2018. We’ve got a ways to go, folks!
