Fandango: You mention some characters are invested with more screen time than others. Can you name which of those characters were invested more?
Joe Russo: Interestingly enough, I'll start out by saying Thanos, even though he's not a character that had a huge preexisting story in the Marvel universe. He was a threat but he was not developed in any way up to this point.
Thanos has an incredible amount of screen time in this film, in a lot of ways I would say it's his movie. Our job when we make these films — and what we feel is important to us — is to surprise the audience. We wanted to tell a story that they weren't expecting, and the story is told from the point of view of a villain, which I think is also really unique and risky for a commercial film that will surprise the audience. I think this is a market where the audience really enjoys innovation and disruption, and we want to do something innovative in this space. So I think Thanos has an incredible amount of screen time, and I think you'll find that Thor has a really interesting arc in the film. He hasn't been at the forefront of other Avengers movies but he certainly has a very important role in this film. So I'll say, Thanos and Thor.
Fandango: Whose story does this film belong to? Does it have its own hero telling the narrative?
Joe Russo: Its point of view is Thanos' point of view, so it's a villain driving the narrative. But there are, that being said, it is at times multi-perspective and there are very important roles for a couple of the heroes. I think you could argue, too, that a lot of the film is told from the point of view of Gamora, and I think she has a really fascinating arc in the movie.
Joe Russo: Who's the most surprising? Let's take Thanos. I don't want to keep defaulting to him but
I think people will find him at turns horrifying and at turns empathetic.
Fandango: Ooh, okay. Sounds like he's kind of a Killmonger.
Joe Russo: Certainly, we love villains with depth and it was really, you know, in Winter Soldier what motivated us to work on that film is the fact that Captain America was unwittingly going up against his best friend. As a villain it’s an incredibly rich backstory and potential for real drama there, so we love complicated villains. Civil War, Zemo is a victim, he was victimized by the Avengers. His family was killed and he blames them for it, so we always try to find the human side of a villain because in every villain's story, they're the hero in their own story.
Their point of view is that they're right. And I find that when I watch films where the villain is more complex I find that it makes the heroes more complex and ultimately in the story more interesting.