Here’s how Joe Russo thinks Avengers: Endgame is different from Infinity War

Avengers: Endgame might be the follow-up to Infinity War. But according to director Joe Russo, these won’t be the same movies at all.

Long before Avengers: Endgame was called Endgame, this sequel to Infinity War was dubbed Avengers: Infinity War Part II. It seems fitting now that the “Part II” was dropped, because we’re looking at two completely different movies.

Despite the new name, it may still be easy for some to shrug Endgame off as a “Part II,” but director Joe Russo thinks otherwise.

Speaking to BoxOffice Pro, Russo expressed that there will definitely be some big differences between the two movies — and this is the approach that he and his co-director brother, Anthony Russo, have taken with their other films. BoxOffice Pro mentions Captain America: Winter Soldier was akin to a spy film, Captain America: Civil War was a worldwide adventure that showed heroes were flawed, and Infinity War was something of a “heist” film (kind of like if Ocean’s Eleven was about stealing Infinity Stones.)

Of course, with the Russo brothers experimenting and changing genres with each of their films, Endgame will switch things up once again. Russo explained how that would happen, saying:

"I will say that the movie is definitely unique in tone. It has its own spirit that’s different than Infinity War, which is why I was keen for us to separate the movies. Of course, we’re handing off narratives and it’s been serialized over 22 movies. But, it’s different tonally than Infinity War and it is told from a different point of view. It was important for us in our minds as film directors to separate those two because we do not want to make the same movie twice, and ways that you can differentiate films are through tone and point of view."

The point of view shift Russo is referring to may be a result of handing the narrative back to the heroes. In Infinity War, the story was told from Thanos’ point of view. We followed him from start to finish in his quest to find the stones and, at the end, he’s the victor; everything ends happily for him.

With Endgame, we’ll most certainly see less of Thanos — as our heroes have to find where he’s made off to first. In the meantime, the trailers show our heroes readjusting to life without their friends and families. Eventually, they’ll come up with a plan to reverse the snap — but it may take longer than they think. Along the way, we’ll get a new melting pot of heroes who have rarely or never interacted with one another before, and that should make the narrative all the more fresh.

From this interview, it seems like the goal of Endgame is to be something truly unique to audiences, even though this is the 22nd film on the MCU roster. The Russos are aiming to not make this just another superhero movie. And being such a grand finale that it is, fans are counting on the Russos to get it right.

There’s less than a month to go. Avengers: Endgame is out in theaters April 26.