Why Avengers: Endgame Directors Lied About the Film's Title

CBR

By Ian Cardona

Published Apr 11, 2019

Avengers: Endgame co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo reveal why they lied about the film's secretive title after Infinity War.

A year ago, when all of the attention was centered on the release of Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War, a lot of people were curious about the title of the mysterious Avengers 4. Even following the release of Infinity War, theories were flown left and right, and the directors of the two films, Joe and Anthony Russo, even went as far as confirming the title wasn't spoken in the Avengers threequel.

However, the deception came to an end when the Avengers: Endgame title was finally revealed in December 2018. Of course, such a title meant the directors had lied, considering Doctor Strange's famous Infinity War line, "We're in the endgame now."

"No one ever said “Avengers: Endgame," Anthony Russo joked in an interview with /Film.

"That was a year before the movie gets released, and we are constantly changing things and these are iterative and creative processes," Joe Russo added, elaborating on why the brothers had to lie about the title. "It is impossible to commit to anything with any kind of clarity a year before you’re about to release some content. ‘Cause who knows your DP could accidentally put the title on his resume and then we throw it out."

"You know, like there are a million reasons why that may or may not be a title for the movie. And until we sit in a room and we watch a trailer with the title on it, then we all look at each other and say, we running with this title. That’s usually when the title sticks to a movie. So when people are asking us questions a year before release… And look, they have the right and that’s their job but we also have the right and it’s our job to protect the creative integrity of our choices. And you don’t want to be trapped into, and pressured into choices in the same way that a writer wants to feel like they’re getting accurate answers out of us – There are no accurate answers a year out!"

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau and Bradley Cooper, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Josh Brolin. The film arrives April 26.