Many fans felt Avengers: Infinity War ended on a cliffhanger, with Thanos successfully snapping half the universe away using the Infinity Gauntlet. However, co-writer Stephen McFeely disagrees.
In an interview with Empire, McFeely explained Infinity War was, at its heart, a tragedy, saying, "Heroes lose all the time at the end of act two, and it usually lasts five minutes and then they're back out of it. We didn't want to do that. It seemed like a cheat. People accuse that first movie of being a cliffhanger, but I'll go to my grave saying it's a tragedy. A cliffhanger implies that you're going to resolve it quickly, and we did not want to do that."
After losing in Infinity War, Earth's Mightiest Heroes regrouped and defeated Thanos towards the start of Avengers: Endgame. The movie then jumped forward five years and followed the remaining heroes on their quest to reverse the snap. As such, it took a long time for the end of Infinity War to get the resolution McFeely argues would have had to have happened quickly had the ending been a cliffhanger.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Don Cheadle as War Machine, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Danai Gurira as Okoye and Bradley Cooper as Rocket, with Gwyneth Paltrow Pepper Potts, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Benedict Wong as Wong, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and Josh Brolin as Thanos. The film is in theaters now.