Russo brothers say Avengers: Infinity War is heavily inspired by heist films

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

We've seen them sprinkled throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the past decade, but the upcoming AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR will finally bring the Infinity Stones together as Thanos (Josh Brolin) seeks to use them to control the universe, but first, he'll have to steal them. Anthony and Joe Russo are a little over halfway through their massive undertaking, directing both AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and its as-yet-untitled sequel, but they spoke with CNET a little about the upcoming film, which Anthony Russo says will be heavily inspired by heist films and feature quite a lot of Thanos, to the point where he's almost one of the leads.

With "Infinity War," the biggest new element to the movie is Thanos and the fact that he's entering the storytelling in a very bold, strong way, to the degree that he's almost one of the leads. We've shaped an interesting narrative around him that in some ways leans heavily on a heist film in the fact that he's going after the infinity stones in a much bolder, successful way than he has in the past. The entire movie has that energy of the bad guy being one step ahead of the heroes. We looked at a lot of movies that had that heist-style energy to them, [and] that brought some inspiration.

Marvel has played with the heist genre before, such as in Peyton Reed's ANT-MAN, but I'd imagine that AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR will play with the genre in much different ways. Joe Russo says INFINITY WAR will have plenty of other surprises in store, including a lot of unexpected characters.

There's going to be a lot of unexpected characters. There are more surprises packed into this film than any of the others. Part of that is character interactions, new interesting characters, characters that have made small appearances that are really getting fleshed out in this film. A lot of people enjoy the experience, so I don't want to give anything away, but certainly you can expect lots of surprises.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR will hit theaters on May 4, 2018.