How The Infinity War Cast Found Out About Thanos' Snap Scene

Screen Rant

Avengers: Infinity War executive producer Trinh Tran reveals on the Blu-ray that the cast found out about Thanos' snap the day of filming.

The entire cast of Avengers: Infinity War found out about Thanos' snap scene and who was going to die on the day of filming. It's no secret that the creative team behind the third Avengers film - directors Anthony and Joe Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely - went to great lengths to make sure that the movie wasn't spoiled ahead of time, including deceiving their own cast and crew.

Ever since movies like Star Wars graced the big screen years ago, it has become somewhat of a past-time for fans to peruse through as much information as possible to figure out what will happen in a future blockbuster film. With regards to Infinity War, it has been extensively reported that most of the cast never got to read the real script for the movie. Instead, they were given fake Avengers scripts with only their lines being the actual real parts. A lot of the time, they found out what was happening in their scenes on the day of filming - and Thanos' snap was no different.

On the Avengers: Infinity War Blu-ray, executive producer Trinh Tran says in the "Beyond the Battle: Wakanda" featurette that the cast found out about Thanos' snap scene in the Battle of Wakanda, as well as who was going to die/disappear in that sequence, on the day of filming on the Wakanda set:

"The blip-out sequence, we had gathered the whole entire talent there circled around our directors and basically revealed to them that morning of, when they came on set, that that scene was happening, that some of them were going to be, you know, disappearing."

Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes in Avengers Infinity War's Wakanda Battle

What's interesting is that, while fans knew the cast didn't found out about their death scenes until late in production, Scarlet Witch actress Elizabeth Olsen previously revealed that the Russos had told everyone while they were all crammed in a van. While it's possible that the Russos told some of the actors ahead of time - perhaps primarily the core actors - it seems that everyone found out about the scene and what was going to happen the day of, and that was specifically done to prevent spoilers from leaking and ruining the movie (though it's recently been argued that spoilers don't actually ruin good movies).

Some people got to find out a tad bit earlier, however, if they chose to read the script in a closed-off room, as Benedict Cumberbatch admits to having done. And considering that they started filming Avengers 4 almost immediately after wrapping production on Avengers 3, the Russos presumably employed a similar tactic on that set as well. Unfortunately, audiences have to wait until next summer to find out how the MCU's first saga concludes once and for all.