Avengers: Infinity War began the culmination of the MCU as we know it. After 18 big movies in the MCU, we arrived to the biggest crossover event that has ever taken place in the MCU and it is easy to say that this movie blew everyone away like little grenades. People came into the movie with so many questions, and while some of them got answered, they actually left the theatres with more questions than they had before. It was stunning and the big snap towards the end was as shocking as a movie could get. The big snap by Thanos left us all completely shocked at the end of the movie.
The Russos strategically chose who would survive and who would die with the Snap. They chose the ones whose deaths will have a major impact on other characters, like Bucky and Sam went out, which will really motivate Cap, Spider-Man died in the hands of Tony, so he will be motivated, Groot died calling out his dad Rocket, Black Panther went out in front of Okoye, so it all would work to drive character arcs in Avengers 4. Here’s what Joe Russo had to say about how and why they chose the victims who would be erased by Thanos’ big finger snap:
“The movie sort of keeps twisting at the end there in ways that you can’t believe it’s going one step beyond and that the fate of our characters and the fate of our universe are still at play. In terms of our choices of who Thanos would end up eradicating with his snap, it was very story focused. How do we pay off each individual character story most profoundly? The first person to go is Bucky Barnes and it’s shot from Captain America’s perspective. We’re watching Cap go through the experience of watching him go away. We’re watching Okoye, whose number one mission it is in life is to protect the king. She watches the king go, in front of her. To see those characters react in those situations is very powerful and resonant.”
One of the Survivors turned out to be Black Widow. Scarlett Johnasson’s Black Widow did not have much to do in Infinity War as her arc was reduced due to the fact that there were so many heroes appearing all at once. The only great part about Widow in the movie was that she was actually able to hold her own going up against the likes of Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight. Rest she had a little to nothing when it comes to her story arc.
The Russos have confirmed that she and Captain America will have enhanced story arcs in Avengers 4. There must be one person who may be really happy even after her story arc may have taken a dive in the biggest crossover event ever. The reason for that is the fact that she is now the highest paid actress in Hollywood as a new report from Forbes suggests that Johansson has reportedly dethroned Emma Stone for the accolade through her earnings of $40.5 million in pretax earnings between June of 2017 and June of 2018.
Well, that is insane! It is safe to say that she is the Robert Downey Jr. of Hollywood actresses as even if she did not have a lot of screen time in Infinity War, she was surely paid the big bucks which are actually higher than the likes of even Chris Evans and Hemsworth, who play much more significant roles than Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow.
So she is getting a whole lot for very less. 2017 was not big for her when it comes to the movies as she only starred in Ghost in the Shell and Rough Night which were not big successes. So we could imagine that a major chunk of earnings might be for Infinity War.
Infinity War writer Christopher Markus admitted that they had to make Captain America and Black Widow’s role shorter but he confirmed the fact that Scar Jo will have a larger role in Avengers 4.
“I’m not telling you what the story is. I will say there is less Steve Rogers and Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) than you might expect in this movie [Infinity War]. Because they are such hard-bitten people, when a threat comes, they stand there and they take the threat. They don’t crack. They don’t whimper. They don’t start talking about all their failed opportunities. So, there isn’t that much to explore, especially when you don’t have a lot of time. But there’s a lot later.”
