Infinity War co-director Joe Russo talks about the Black Order
In the Avengers: Infinity War footage that was shown at Disney’s D23 Expo and the Marvel panel at San Diego Comic-Con, we got to see a very small glimpse of Thanos’ Black Order. Fans got a look at some statues from the film at D23 and there were four members of the Black Order on display. We got a chance to chat with co-director Joe Russo about where the fifth member was and why he chose to bring these newer members of the Marvel Universe to the big screen.
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If you’re not familiar with the Black Order, they’re henchmen of Thanos who were introduced fairly recently in the Marvel comics, in 2013 in New Avengers Vol. 3 #8. The Black Order’s members include Black Dwarf, Corvus Glaive, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight and Supergiant. Supergiant, however, was missing in the look we got at D23.
About including the Black Order, Russo told us, “We get inspired by a lot of different material when we’re working on the movie. We pulled from both Infinity runs for this, and look, there are a scary bunch of characters who I happen to think, when I read the Infinity run, were super cool. And when I got the opportunity to make this movie, I said I have to do the Black Order. You know, we have so many characters and Thanos needs to be teased out. You can’t have the characters challenging him every step of the way. There has to be characters that they have to go through to get to him. The Black Order is the perfect cast of characters to do that with.”
We asked about the missing Supergiant. He said, “One of them wasn’t there! Again, we are dealing with so many characters that we made some choices along the way. Consolidation seemed like a smart thing to my brother and I because they were starting to overlap each other. And frankly, when you see the movie you’ll understand, it services the storytelling.” We asked if the powers were sort of melding together. He said, “The power meld in and frankly, we’re altering their powers to things that I felt were in better service of our storytelling. But also things that I think are cooler and things that I want to see, and again, as a comic book fan, as I read a book, I have my own ideas about what I would do with those characters, the same way that a writer would, the way any writer would when he takes on Spider-Man or Captain America. Everyone brings their own spin to it. So we brought our own spin to the Black Order.”
The Avengers sequel sees Earth’s Mightiest Heroes teaming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to take on Brolin’s Thanos. Confirmed cast members for the film so far include Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scalett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olson, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Don Cheadle, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Pom Klementieff, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong, Sean Gunn, Tom Holland, Josh Brolin, and Paul Rudd.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who return after Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, are directing both Avengers: Infinity War and the untitled fourth film, which are being filmed back-to-back in Atlanta and are written by screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Both films will also be shot entirely with IMAX cameras.
Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War is slated for a release in theaters on May 4, 2018. Then, the Avengers assemble again for the still-untitled fourth film, set for May 3, 2019. What do you think about the inclusion of the Black Order? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @ComingSoonnet.