It’s a well-known fact that Marvel Studios likes to keep moviegoers in the dark for as long as possible. But in the case of Avengers: Endgame, the studio has been kicking their secrecy machine into overdrive. As it turns out, not even the film’s sizeable cast could be trusted not to spill the beans. In an interview with E! News (via /Film), Mark Ruffalo explained the lengths that Marvel went to in order to keep all of Endgame’s plot details under wraps.
“I shot, like, five different endings to this movie,” said Ruffalo. Apparently, this was no easy feat. “I didn’t even get a whole script of this movie. I don’t know why. The script I did get had dummy scenes in it. He [pointing to Chris Evans] gets married in this!”
Honestly, it’s not surprising that Ruffalo in particular wouldn’t get to see Endgame’s finalized script prior to shooting. Whether casually dropping spoilers during press junkets or accidentally live-streaming the premiere of Thor: Ragnarok, Ruffalo has a reputation for divulging too much information. To his credit, Ruffalo is not as bad as Tom Holland. While plugging Endgame in India last week, co-director Joe Russo shared that Holland “gets his lines and that’s all he gets.” However, even that isn’t enough of a safeguard. Russo added that Holland “doesn’t even know who he’s acting opposite” before filming a scene.
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Additionally, /Film pointed to another interview between both Russo brothers and Collider. Despite Ruffalo’s revelation about multiple endings being filmed, the directors knew how the upcoming installment would conclude from the get-go.
“When we were working on both Infinity War and Endgame, the first thing we did was break the ending of Endgame,” said Joe Russo. “Because we wanted to know where we were going. It’s very hard to tell a story if you don’t know where you’re going. So we have a very specific process with [the writers] where we spent months in a room just talking about a three-page outline. Literally, page one is act one, page two is act two, page three is act three.”
“Because you have to know in a contained document like that, ‘Here’s where we start, here’s what happens in the middle, here’s where it ends,’” continued Russo. “If you know that, it’s a lot easier to get to script. A more malleable format to work in a short outline like that, spend your time talking about it and thinking it through. We knew fairly early on how this was gonna end.”
What do you make of Marvel’s decision to film more than one ending for Avengers: Endgame? Can you still trust the film’s marketing campaign after this? Let us know in the comment section below!
