For the most part, the cast of Avengers: Endgame was in the dark just as much as the fans when
it came to the movie's plot developments.
Here's how they reacted when they got the news about what would be happening to Earth's
Mightiest Heroes in the war against Thanos.
One of the most crowd-pleasing moments of Avengers: Endgame comes when Tony Stark channels
Black Sabbath one last time before wiping out Thanos and his forces with the Infinity
Stones.
"I am Iron Man."
The move wins the day for the good guys with a fantastic callback, bringing the series
full circle in what some fans would call a "crowning moment of awesome."
It's just a perfect line for Tony, and one that wasn't in the script.
After Endgame was released, directors Anthony and Joe Russo revealed the line was added
to the movie in reshoots, after editor Jeff Ford realized a response was needed for Thanos'
final declaration of "I am inevitable."
The Russos brought Downey to dinner to pitch the reshoot, with Hollywood super-producer
Joel Silver also tagging along.
According to the Russos, Downey's reaction to his character's death was so powerful that
he resisted being brought back to face it again.
They recalled him being hesitant, saying.
"I don't know.
I don't really want to go back and get into that emotional state."
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
It was apparently Silver an old friend of Downey's who managed to change his mind.
According to the Russos, he responded to the actor's doubts with,
"Robert, what are you talking about?
That's the greatest line I've ever heard!
You gotta say this line!
You have to do this!"
And like a snap, it was done.
"How 'bout that?"
Speaking to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Winter Soldier actor Sebastian Stan discussed
how tight the secrecy was while filming Endgame even more so than usual.
When asked if he ever had any idea of what exactly he was filming, Stan said,
"Not for this one we didn't.
I mean, everything I filmed I found out on the day."
He also joked that he concealed his confusion with some of that smoldering Winter Soldier
charisma.
"You can kinda tell behind my expression, I hide the confusion well, under a Zoolander
look."
Stan referred specifically to one of Endgame's final scenes when the surviving heroes gather
for Tony Stark's memorial.
According to Stan, he was initially told it was a very different type of ceremony.
"I was told it was a wedding, that there was a wedding that we were filming.
And I was like, 'Who's getting married?'"
Throughout the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Drax has demonstrated that you don't need
a lot of words to say how you really feel.
Dave Bautista proved the same point with his brief but telling response to Avengers: Endgame.
In an April 29 post, the Drax actor tweeted,
"Annnnnd...still processing."
Drax doesn't appear in Endgame until the final battle, so considering the secrecy and misdirection
used on actors like Mark Ruffalo, whose characters were more important to the overall plot, it
isn't likely Bautista knew much about what happened in the movie outside scenes he filmed.
His reactions were likely just like the ones felt by most of the audience.
His "processing" may also revolve around what it all means for Drax's future in the MCU.
With the death of Thanos a death which, let's remember, has very little to do with Drax's
actions in the film Bautista's character's chief motivation is gone.
"Yes.
Of course, Ronan was only a puppet.
It's really Thanos I need to kill."
Then there's the fact that, at the end of Endgame, Thor seemed to be joining the cast
of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
As such, it's safe to imagine that at least some of Bautista's processing might be of
a professional nature.
After all, Drax is a big strong guy who says funny things.
Thor is a big strong guy who says funny things.
Do you really need two?
Then again, maybe he's just processing that, in the next film, he gets to work in such
a beautiful creature's presence:
"He is not a dude.
You're a dude.
This, this is a man.
A handsome, muscular man."
Leave it to Star-Lord to do the exact opposite of what he's supposed to do.
"What are you doing?"
"Dance off, bro!
Me and you!"
On the set of Endgame, while taking some downtime during filming the movie's climactic final
battle, Chris Pratt took out his phone and knowingly broke all the rules he started recording.
"This is a really illegal video."
The star posted the video to his Instagram account on May first, and it's a regular who's
who of MCU actors, folks who are now some of the most famous performers on the planet.
When it came to one of the biggest moments in the movie, Pratt's first thought was to
make sure, quote, "no rule was going to stop" him from capturing and sharing it.
And it's kind of tough to blame him.
Chris Evans ends the video by playfully telling his costar that he's in:
"Big trouble."
"Big time."
But it's Sean Gunn, who motion-captures Rocket Raccoon, who has the best line in the clip:
"I'm pretty sure I'm the most famous person here."
One of Endgame's biggest moments didn't take place on the screen or behind the cameras;
it happened in the record books.
In early May, Avengers: Endgame knocked 1997's Titanic out of the #2 spot on the list of
highest-grossing films in box office history.
The development didn't go unnoticed by Titanic director James Cameron, who issued a social
media congratulations to the MCU.
Posting a picture on Instagram of a ship sunk by a half-submerged Avengers logo rather than
an iceberg, Cameron accompanied the image with:
"An iceberg to sank the real Titanic.
It took The Avengers to sink my Titanic…You've shown that not only is the movie industry
alive and well.
It's bigger than ever!"
Don Cheadle, who plays War Machine, responded to Cameron's classy congrats with a now-deleted
tweet that read, "Nothing personal, James…it's the fans," and a shrugging emoji.
Judging by the responses Cheadle's tweet received, the snark has not been overlooked.
Cameron rubbed superhero movie fans the wrong way in April 2018, when he told Indiewire
he was hoping for what he called, quote, "Avenger fatigue."
Cameron said he liked the movies, but
"...there are other stories to tell besides hyper-gonadal males without families doing
death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process."
Perhaps now Cameron is relieved Endgame has come and gone, so that those "hyper-gonadal
males" will leave for a bit and give Cameron a chance to show us some Terminator movies
with, uh, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Downey, Bautista, and Cheadle all showed us how only a few words can say so much.
Hawkeye actor Jeremy Renner went a bit further, and reinforced that old adage about a picture
and how many stories it can tell on its own.
Renner's mother accompanied him to the Avengers: Endgame premiere.
The next day, Renner posted a touching photo of himself holding his mother and appearing
very emotional; perhaps even in tears.
Renner wrote:
"Wow…words will only betray my feelings for this movie…this picture from last night
represents…love…pride of my family, my friends, and crazy for my avenger family."
Renner didn't mention any specific scenes or aspects of the film that put him in such
a vulnerable state, but anyone who has seen Endgame probably has an easy time imagining
more than a few things that could leave the Avengers' favorite archer in tears.
One of the biggest moments of Avengers: Endgame's resolution is when the aged Steve Rogers passes
his shield to Falcon.
It's a welcome, crowd-pleasing moment toward the end of the film.
Apparently, Anthonie Mackie was one of the last to know it was going to happen.
Fittingly, Mackie said the moment he learned about it was an interesting reflection of
what we see on the screen.
Mackie told IMDb:
"I didn't even know it was happening.
We were at his house and he goes, 'You excited?'
I went, 'What you talking about?'
He goes, 'Wait, you don’t know?'"
At that point, Mackie says Evans ran out of the room and returned with the script for
Mackie to read.
"And I read the scene and I’m like, ‘Oh,’ and he goes, ‘Yes' We cried, we drank, we
laughed, it became this thing."
He went on to express his gratitude that he got to spend that kind of moment with Evans,
and it sounds like he got a good laugh out of getting the news later than everyone else.
"Don’t look at me.
I do what he does, just slower."
Anthony Mackie may have been grateful for the moment he had with Chris Evans where he
was passed Cap's shield, but a lot of fans were the exact opposite of grateful when the
Captain America actor talked about his reaction to Avengers: Endgame with The Hollywood Reporter
a month before the film's theatrical release.
Evans told THR he, quote, "choked up like three times."
A month later, at Endgame's L.A. premiere, Evans boosted that number to six.
The original THR interview upset fans about the prospect of being upset.
The news that the movie made one of the stars cry had some asking how they were to cope.
"I'm very upset!
You know what I like about being upset?
Blame!"
What really set the fans on fire was Evans' joke during the THR interview about his own
character's supposed death.
The interview ends with Evans joking,
"It's hard.
Seeing my own death.
It's going to be a long movie, that's for sure.
The first edit clocked in over three hours.
My funeral's like an hour."
Some fans went so far as to direct some less than polite words at the actor for joking
about Cap dying, but plenty of others had a good sense of humor about it.
Along with big moments that happened in Endgame, we've also seen some fun reactions to moments
that fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your tastes) didn't happen.
Like the so-called "ThanusTheory," which guessed that Ant-Man would defeat Thanos by shrinking,
entering the Mad Titan's butt, and then switching to Giant Man size.
UK talk show host Graham Norton asked Paul Rudd about the theory, and both Norton and
fellow guest Chris Hemsworth pointed out the tactic would work.
But apparently not in love with the idea, Rudd asked,
"Why not the ear or the nose?
I mean, why does it have to be…?"
The Titan himself got to comment on the theory when Variety asked Josh Brolin about it at
the Endgame premiere.
Referring to an Instagram post he'd made earlier that day featuring an artist's rendering of
naked Thanos' backside, Brolin dodged addressing the theory directly, instead choosing to celebrate
the Mad Titan’s impressive physique.
"That's a peach, man, that's a peach.
That's a purple peach if I've ever seen one, that's a beautiful, purple peach."
In the aftermath of Endgame's release, one of the film's most polarizing aspects was
the appearance of so-called "Fat Thor."
Five years after the Decimation and Thanos' death at the hands of Thor, the thunder god
is revealed to be in dire emotional straits.
Thor is depicted as having done little for the past few years but eat, drink heavily,
and play video games.
"Thor!"
"Is he asleep?"
Regardless of the debate about the character's Endgame trajectory and how it was handled,
we know now that Hemsworth was excited about it.
In an interview with Sirius XM, directors Joe and Anthony Russo shared how they pitched
Hemsworth their plans over the phone for Fat Thor.
Anthony said during the call,
"[Hemsworth] was so energized by the work he had done [in Thor:Ragnarok] in terms of
coming up with a more comedic and irreverent Thor."
That's when Joe Russo chimed in, saying,
"'Wait until you hear what we've got for you.'"
"I think I'm having a panic attack."
"Get it together!"
Considering Hemsworth has said he was bored with playing Thor before Ragnarok re-energized
his interest, it's a safe bet that if he continues in the MCU, Hemsworth is going to want to
keep charting new territory for the thunder god.
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