All language subtitles for THUNDERBOLTS*I Nuovi Avengers (Jake Schreier, USA 2025) [1080p].5 ENG Commentary

[Schreier] Hi, everybody.
I’m Jake Schreier,
director of Thunderbolts*.

I’m gonna try to lead us
through here and throw credit
to as many people as I can

while we’re watching this.

And, also,
as a snapshot in time,

this is the day
the movie comes out,
and I’ve been on a press tour,

and I’m a little tired, so...

I never have much enthusiasm,
energy, but I might
have even less.

Anyway, this title sequence
was created
by Imaginary Forces.

We talked about
really wanting to do

something that honored
the traditional Marvel flip

that announced that
this movie was gonna be
a little bit different.

And they did a great job
with that, of kind of
bringing the Void into it,

which we’ll see later.

And here we find Florence,

without whom
none of this movie
would work.

Um, what an incredible actress.

Obviously, this stunt
got talked a lot about.

This was something,
when Lee Sung Jin
came in, uh,

and did multiple drafts
of the script,

we talked about wanting
to build our own version

of a kind of Bond
or Mission: Impossible opening.

But for our movie,
that felt like
more of an emotional stunt,

so it was this idea of finding
a young woman in a place of...

where you might imagine
it was a suicide,

but then actually,
it’s disaffection.

And it was like, "Oh,
can we go to the tallest
building in the world?"

And, you know,
I said to Florence
in the beginning of this shoot,

"How are you with heights?"

And she was, like,
"I love heights.
What are we doing?"

Um... And she just
took this on,

’cause Disney health and safety
said no at least three times,
and the whole shoot...

This was one of the...
the last sequence
we did in the film, this roof.

Uh, she just
would not let it go.

And just the amount of planning
that went into
getting up on that roof

and her embracing
actually stepping off
on that descender rig,

I’ve never really seen
anything like it.

We were up there,
every time there’s lightning,

you have to come off of
the roof for half an hour.

Uh, I also want
to mention Katie, the best
BASE jumper in the world,

who did the wide shot of that.

Um, that’s Florence
doing her own stunt
right there.

Man, there’s too many things
to say with this movie
as we go.

This shot, again,
it was this idea of, like,

"Is there a kind of different
way we can approach
an opening action sequence?"

You know, our own sort of...

I mean, you know,
we can’t approach
the Oldboy hallway fight,

but this is our own version.
This is Sarah, um,

Florence’s wonderful
stunt double, doing this,

and this idea of,
like, could we use it

as a way to thematically
put shadows
into the movie early?

Again, if we’re gonna be
a bit of a different sort
of action movie,

or an emotional kind
of action movie,

is there a way to
establish that up front
and let you know that?

So, Joanna Calo, who...
another one of
our wonderful writers,

this is her work here.
[chuckles]
Talking to the guard.

She wanted a taped guard
that wasn’t listening
to Florence.

Um...

Well, whatever.
You’re useless to me...

[Schreier] Yeah, I just love
Florence’s sort of...

her ability to play that humor
and that disaffection
just so kind of quietly. Um...

And, then, yeah,
this was another Sonny add,

the idea of doing a kind of
whole opening monologue

that really delivered
to a guard that you have
tied up and a guinea pig.

I think initially, perhaps,
it was a chicken,
in one of the early drafts,

and then, yeah,
landed on guinea pig.

But it helps you show, again,
even in her sort of
disaffection and loss,

that, like,
she is a caring person.

There are things,
especially this
adorable animal,

that she cares about.

Also, if you look closely
at that maze that
the guinea pig is in,

Grace Yun, our wonderful
production designer,

you actually find
Yelena’s Void rooms in there.

It’s a little Easter egg,
if you look closely.

Did Valentina send you?

This research is property
of OXE Group.

- You’re gonna tell me
I don’t understand.
- You don’t understand.

[Schreier] This is Eric Lange,
an incredible actor

who I’ve worked with
on numerous TV shows,

who was nice enough
to come down to Atlanta
and work with us on this.

Um...

You know,
it’s a part probably...

You know, he’s bigger
than this part,

but at the same time,
I just felt, like,

it’s the first person
that you see Florence
interacting with in the movie,

so to have someone
of his abilities,

and, you know,
he was nice enough to
come down and do a day for us

when he was on another show,

it just was a huge lift
for the film.

Oh, God.

[Schreier] So, yeah,
this was an interesting one,

where we’re trying to do
a version of a kind of
disaffected action sequence,

which was tricky ’cause,
you know, it’s a big movie

and you want to have
fun action in it,
but at the same time,

we need to sell
this idea of a character

kind of on the edge of caring
about any of this.

And a little bit
of a meta commentary
on these films, um,

where, you know,
because she’s disaffected
with her job,

she’s going through
all the things
that happen all the time,

but at the same time,
obviously, that’s a bit of
a wink to how guys, you know...

grunts can never
aim well enough.

And you get to have
a bit of that commentary,

because of her perspective
on her life.

[sighs]

Oh, damn.

I needed that face.

[Schreier]
So, this was actually shot
on the exact same day

that we did
the step off the building.

We did a company move
and then, in a oner,

blew up a whole floor
of this building.

Adam is a wonderful
special effects guy
in Malaysia. Um...

And, again, the thing
I should say about that,
and the opening shot,

is it’s the kind of thing
you can only do if you have
an actress like Florence,

where you know that
she’s going to be
totally in character,

and when you only get
one take at it,
and it is all in one shot,

you have every bit
of confidence that
she’s gonna pull it off,

and you always do with her.

And here we have
the wonderful Sebastian Stan,

uh, uncomfortable as he is
as a congressman. Um...

You know, we had to figure out
what is a new path
to take Bucky on,

and it was something
I talked to Sebastian
a lot about,

and he had a lot of input in.

This idea that, you know,
obviously, in so many
of these films,

a lot of his arc
has been resolved
in terms of where he overlaps

with what our main characters
are going through.

So is there a new arc
and a new sort of want,

a need or frustration
that we can take him on?

And this idea that he’s trying
to figure out how to help

in a more kind of
conventional way,

and that, obviously
through the film, is gonna
become frustrated with that.

The great Wendell Pierce, who
I’d spend every day thanking
for coming and doing this.

I’ve just been
such a fan of his for so long.

And then we meet
Julia and Geraldine.

And, uh, obviously,
for me to get to work
with a legend like Julia,

someone who I’ve admired
for this long,
it was so, so wonderful,

and also just the fact
that she’s such
a lovely person

and so committed
and just trying
to make it better.

And her notes throughout
were the kind of notes
that writers usually give.

She’s so focused on story
and how to make things
clearer and better.

It was just
an absolute pleasure
to work with her.

- ...of OXE Group?
- Yes.

Although, I have fully
divested in OXE
since taking office.

[Schreier] This scene has
been in the movie

in every iteration of drafts
from Eric Pearson’s
initial script.

It’s just taken on many forms,

and, you know,
the story kind of
shifts over time,

but it always felt like
a nice way to kind of establish
the conflict of this movie,

which is always gonna seem,
at first,

potentially smaller
than you’re used to
in a big, superhero film,

where it is a little more
ground-bound
in a political context.

Um, but we always
liked this idea
that we could make a movie

where it wasn’t
from the beginning,

you know,
the traditional evil
villain world stakes,

and that there is no
necessary conventional villain.

I mean, you could look at
our main characters as villains

in the right context,
in that,
from Val’s perspective,

she’s just sort of
frustrated at having to
kind of back-channel

in order to have power,

and this scene is supposed to
kind of establish that,

that she’s under investigation,
under threat,

and therefore needs to get rid
of our main characters.

But, God, would she want
just her own,

uh, you know,
Golden Guardian of Good

that she could stand behind
and just be in control
of everything.

That would make things
a lot easier for her.

And there is also, again,

this running meta commentary
that we try to establish here

about this idea
that the Avengers are not
in this world anymore,

and that obviously the way
that sets on Bucky

and sets for the audience
is feeling like

we are a ways away
from those films at this point,

and there is this kind of
gap left in the world
that people can feel.

- ...this investigation?
- Oh, of course not.

[chuckles]

Shit.
We gotta get all
of this outta here...

[Schreier] This is all,
uh, a real set.
None of that is extension.

It’s a very large building
in Atlanta, convention center
that we shot at.

And that was really something
we tried with Grace Yun,
our production designer,

to always find places that...
either that we build all of

or that we find a location
that we can dress
and really try--

even if it means,
if we did this onstage,

maybe we could make it
an even bigger warehouse,

but then it would all be
in post, and just that feeling
that starts to come in

when everything
behind their heads is real
and has real texture, um,

felt like we would get
an overall lift
for that in the movie,

and I thought Grace
did such a nice job,

if you actually
went to that place,
of what it looked like

to make it feel big
and like it could
belong to OXE.

Uh... [chuckles]

Still remember the day
of filming David on blue screen

to put him into
this old footage.

It was fun looking through
all of this old footage
to go through.

This obviously... this is
another scene that Sonny
really brought to the script,

where, you know,
instead of traditionally
opening a movie like this

with a big action scene
to establish the Red Guardian,

it couldn’t be more opposite.

And I also pushed, even though
we probably could’ve
built this onstage,

but it’s only one day
that we shot in here,

and to go out on location
and whatever
that odd constraint

of being in a small apartment--

You know,
this was shot in Atlanta--

would bring in
this strange feeling of reality

and feeling oddly small
and a little bit sad,

which is where we’re supposed
to find these characters.

And I just thought Sonny did
such a beautiful job here,

and then Joanna pushed it
even further, of, you know,

this idea that
they’ve missed each other
over these years.

There-- There’s a loss
that they’re not processing,

and they’re kind
of talking past each other.

That was something that
really came up in rehearsal

that Joanna put in so nicely

of, you know,

Yelena was always
kind of talking
in this scene

about not really
having a purpose
or a reason to live,

and Alexei is not in a place
to receive that.

Thinks she’s just
talking about work.

Can’t understand why
she wouldn’t want to
pursue the glory

that he misses so much.

And it’s such a lovely
bit of acting
between these two

of kind of talking
past each other
and not being able to connect

in the way that they eventually
will need to in the film,
and it really...

You know,
I don’t think we filmed
this scene

until maybe five weeks
into production.

And it was at night.
It was raining.

We had to do it in one night,
which is not so hard,
but it is more like a TV pace,

where it’s
a four-and-a-half-page scene

that goes a lot
of different places.

And I... I just remember
what a lift it gave us,

even though it is in
such a small place
and feels kind of almost dingy.

But to see, you know, really
the theme of what our movie
is about established here

with these two great actors
who are really bringing it

and play so well
off each other...

You know,
sometimes on these action--

I think the biggest
learning curve for me making
a movie like this was that

the proportion of the shoot
is not equal to the proportion
of what you watch.

I love directing action,
but you spend so long
on the action sequences

that, you come to
a scene like this,

and it only makes up one day
of your, you know,
72-day shoot.

But in the movie,
it’s such a huge part

of establishing
what the movie is about.

You know, and for
Florence right here,
look at this moment where,

what is the point
of any of this,

to kind of allude to
the purposelessness of life,

but not in a way
that feels overwrought.

And that actually
could be missed by Alexei.

I mean, that takes
such deft acting.

And, again, for David here
to not overly lean into
the humor of it.

I mean, Red Guardian is
absolutely very funny,

and David is amazing at that,

but he never goes too far
in that direction

so that he can pull back
in the moments like this,

where you really feel his loss
and what he’s missing out on
and the things that he misses.

We always talked about Alexei
as sort of doing it
for the wrong reasons,

that he was the one
that was gonna
assemble this team

’cause he believed
in the idea of teams.

But he’s invested
in this sort of meta idea
of superheroes

and forming a team
and to be aware of this.

He can say things like,
"Scrappy antiheroes,"
like he does later.

But, of course,
what he really needs to learn

is that you’re supposed
to be doing it
for the sake of it,

not for the glory,
as he later says.

Um... [chuckles]

This is a small personal note.

These soccer uniforms
are based, uh,
on my soccer team growing up,

which is what I pitched
as the basis
for Thunderbolts*.

We were called
the Colossal Cleats.
I named the team.

We lost every game.
I was the goalie.

Uh... All of that is true.

And Sanja Hays
did an incredible job

of recreating those, uh,
reversible mesh jerseys
from my childhood.

It was strange to see.

Reporting for duty.
What’s my next assignment?

Thank you, Ms. Belova.
I was starting to worry.

After this though, I--

[Schreier] This is
an interesting phone call

in that we always weren’t sure
if it was gonna be okay

that our two kind of,
you know, our antagonist
and our protagonist

never really meet in person
in the movie.

There used to be versions
where they did,
and then it felt like

by getting them together,
it was almost gonna
cause too many problems,

where, if Val was able
to search her out,

she would know that,
uh, she wasn’t really
in the right place

to do what she needed to do,

and also that Yelena
would be too smart to know
what Val was gonna do to her,

so the phone call made sense
as a separation

and also a way to just
propel us into the action
with that cut

and use this more
as a kind of montage voice-over

to establish the rules
of the world.

This, uh...
A lot of this is CG, but this
is a real helicopter shot

that Jake Morrison,
our visual effects supervisor,
did out in Utah.

And then this whole plaza,
this is real,
that entire facade.

This whole plaza, the rocks,
Grace built all of this
out in Atlanta,

and then, you know,
anything beyond that
is extension.

But all of this,
they shot this
entirely in-camera,

except, I think, at the very,
very edges there might be
some trees painted out.

You’ll have full access.

[Schreier]
Probably my favorite shot in
the film coming up right here.

This was one I really
just wanted
for the trailer.

I wasn’t even sure we’d use it.

But we actually ended up...
You know, it’s funny.

These little pieces
of her going down to the vault,

these got shot over the course
of the entire shoot,

’cause we didn’t have time
to do it as its own scene,

and the sets were getting built
in different pieces.
But I really wanted...

I actually didn’t think
we would end up
using all of them,

but there was
something nice about,
even though it’s-it’s small,

on a smaller scale
of getting to see each piece

of where eventually
our characters were gonna
have to get themselves out of,

and if you don’t show
every piece of that, then
you feel disconnected from it.

But you now,
just subconsciously,

have seen
every single one
of the places

that we’re later gonna revisit
when they’re stuck
down there as a team.

Um, this vault also exists
as an entirely built set.

Those side corridors
aren’t real,

but that entire corridor
that she walks down
into this giant vault...

Grace built
this incredible set
where, again,

it just means that
in this whole fight,
everything behind their heads,

all the texture
that they’re interacting with,

everything that
they’re inside of,
that’s all real.

And, again, it means that
it’s a slightly...

Hilariously,
given how big it is,
it’s probably a smaller set

than you would ordinarily see
in one of these movies,

’cause usually you would
use background extension
to make a larger space,

but then it also wouldn’t have
that same texture of reality,

and that was something that
we tried to prioritize
as much as we could.

Okay, so here begins the fight.
This was one of, you know,
Eric Pearson’s...

This was in
the very first draft
of the script that I read,

this idea of a fight
where everyone
is sent to kill each other.

And I thought that was
such a great flip on what you
expect maybe this movie to be,

um, where it’s just
a team of antiheroes sent to
do bad jobs for the government.

But it became, of course,
a very, very complicated
sequence to design

with Heidi Moneymaker,
our wonderful
stunt coordinator, uh,

trying to establish the idea
that each of them is
going after a different one

was something that took
a lot of stuntvis,
they call it,

and in the end,
Andrew Palermo, my DP,
and I went in

and sort of shot
our own iPhone version
of this fight,

so that each of the shots
were what we were gonna
shoot on the day.

And had that all edited,
and we would reedit it

and add pieces
and make it clearer
and clearer.

And then on this movie,
this wonderful thing about it

was that we had Harry Yoon
and Angela Catanzaro,
our editors,

on set with us
cutting as we went.

So as soon as we would
shoot the shot,
we’d go throw it into the edit,

and we’d basically
be cutting on top
of the sequence

that we had edited before
as stunt reference.

And then we could see,
oh, that works, but actually
we need one more piece here.

I mean, even lines
like this of,
"There you are,"

which seems a little silly
for a character to say,

to remind the audience that
that’s Yelena’s target.

All of the little pieces
of it, you know,

I think it was
our first two weeks
of shooting.

It felt a little bit
like being under water.

It was a tough sequence
to start out in,

just ’cause, again,
these line pulls and
the stunt stuff take so long

that it felt like, okay,
when are we gonna get to
the more emotional stuff?

But, also, as we
put it together, it was
a great kind of reference

for how this movie
was gonna work
and to establish the tone.

And, also, felt a little bit,
in this weird way,

like, we, as a movie,
we’re doing what
the characters were doing,

which was, we were starting
in this very contained vault,

and eventually, we’re gonna
work our way out of it,

eventually to Utah,
towards the end of the shoot,

and then Malaysia
at the very end.

So this is where we started
the whole thing.

There’s Bob,
just a little hint of Bob.
I don’t know how many...

Maybe on your third viewing,
you’d catch that.

Maybe on the first...

Um, but, again, yeah,
even those shots, okay.

So there’s Ghost,
that’s my target,
I have to throw it.

This is, um...
Federico D’Alessandro,
one of our main board artists,

who did some of
the biggest sequences
in this movie.

He and his wife, Coral,
she edits the animatics.

It’s almost like
watching animated movies.

And yeah, that knife catch
was in one of his early boards,

and we just felt like
we had to pull that off.

And a lot of discussions of
the little camera movements
necessary to make that work.

Okay, so, yeah, that’s...
that’s a big moment.

I’ve been asked about this
a lot obviously.

We felt,
coming out of the strike,

when we were, uh,
redeveloping the script
and spending more months in it,

we really felt like the movie
was a little bit bloodless.

Um, and in order to establish
this amount of tension
that we wanted for it,

it felt like,
as sad as it was to not
get to work with Olga more,

that there was a value
in doing an unexpected thing

and having one
of our characters
kill another one,

because that’s what
they were all sent there to do.

And to really establish that
as a possibility in this world,

we thought it was worth it

and that it could hang over
the rest of the movie.

And, also,
as far as where to do it,

that if we did it later,
the emotion of that,
while powerful,

would step on
the Yelena
and Bob relationship,

which was crucial to the movie.

And speaking of Bob,
I just talked over
his introduction,

but obviously he will become
more and more important
as we go in here.

We now find, uh,
Bucky the spy
working the room.

And this benefit,
you know, this is fun,

where, you know, again,
we’re referencing this history.

Given where the movie
is gonna end up and what
they’re gonna be announced as,

we felt like
it was important to weave in
as much as we could,

these kind of tinges
of Marvel’s own history.

What’s fun about working
in a place like this
is that they have those things.

So Grace built that whole "A,"
the Stark "A"
in the background,

but a lot of the items
that you see around
in this room

come from the actual
Marvel vault.

You know, they’ve
lovingly protected and curated
all of these things,

and we could pull them out
for a scene like this
to reference that history

of, uh, of the last time
the Avengers
had to save New York.

You’re scared
because your investigation
of my office came up clean.

Squeaky clean.
Mm-hmm.

[Schreier]
I love Wendell so much
in this scene.

There was more to this scene
that is all very funny

and that we would have
liked to keep in,
but we really felt like, um,

as we went through
the edits and screenings,

that we needed
to get out of that vault.

Um, you know, obviously
we love a lot of the things
that happened down there,

but spending too long
in this section of the movie

and being too contained
within this benefit,

so there was a lot of
kind of editing
that went into this section

to streamline things,

even at the expense sometimes
of really good moments.

Um, just to keep
the overall pace
moving forward

and not spend too long
away from your
perspective characters.

But I do love
Sebastian and Geraldine
in this scene,

especially her, uh,
her business card line.

That was something
that the two of them
came up with together

that feels like
a really fun kind of...

Again, just trying
to establish Bucky
as this fish out of water

trying to do things
a different way,

but it’s not exactly working
as well as he would like it to,

and we need to
kind of feel that frustration,

and then that’ll buy us
the lift of him coming in

on the motorcycle
later in the film.

You say you know
who I am.

So you know my story

and you know
I didn’t have a choice
who I worked for.

But you do.

[Schreier]
And Geraldine kind of has

this perspective character
for, you know,

she says later,
"I was in high school
when the Avengers came."

You know, establishing her
as this kind of
moral perspective on the film

of someone just trying to
work in a job and not
trying to do anything evil,

but having a boss that is,
you know,
perhaps beyond complicated.

And to navigate
those ideas, I think,
is an interesting way in,

especially for younger people
watching the film.

I’m-I’m Bob.
I told you. I’m, uh...

[Schreier] Okay, here’s Lewis
doing his Bob thing.

We know that happens
in another major franchise
from a few years ago.

When I first met with Lewis
about doing this part,

he asked, "Does he have
to be named Bob?
’Cause I have done that."

And I was like,
"Well, it’s pretty important
to what we’ve done,"

so it was very nice of him
to get past that

and embrace the role
in other ways, and, boy,
are we lucky that he did.

This was one of the great joys,
you know, just when
we first started rehearsals,

it’s just with
this core four that we spend
so long with in the vault.

You know, just how quickly
the chemistry
seemed to be there.

And I think Hannah
does such amazing work here
as the glue for this group,

and keeping the rhythm
and the pacing up
and tying them together.

And then Wyatt, you know,
is someone who I worked with
on a show called Lodge 49,

and we’ve been friends
for a long time.

So I knew that there was
this other side of Wyatt

that was deeply affable
and charismatic.

And, I mean, John Walker,
obviously, we’re meant to
have some fun with him here,

but knowing that he had that,
even if, you know,

it hadn’t kind of leaned
in that direction, you know,

his work in the MCU
before that,

it felt exciting
knowing that we could
get there with him.

And Joanna did such a great job
in these scenes,

establishing this
kind of dynamic
between the girls and him,

and this idea of a guy
who just refuses to believe
that he’s been thrown away

and left to die,
where they’re more able
to process it.

And, again, we’re not,
you know,
leaning into that too hard

other than to give him
somewhere to go.

If it’s about, you know,
eventually him having to
be honest with himself

about what he’s done
and what’s happened
to his family

that’s starting it
in this dishonest place,

you know, it’s not about
lying to them as much as it is
about lying to himself.

That-That felt like
a really fun arc
to take him on.

I’m not leaving here without
completing my mission.

Valentina gave me
a clean slate guarantee,
and I’m not screwing that up.

[Schreier]
And Lewis is so good here.

We have such little
narrative real estate,

that you have to come
to care about this guy
very quickly

before we go to the other sides
of the character.

And, you know,
he and I did a lot of work
in rehearsal and in prep

and kind of going
through the script,
really every weekend,

and we would go line by line

and talk about this idea
of Bob and The Sentry
and the Void,

which even in this early phase,
like, which side
of the character

each of those lines leans into

and kind of mapping that out
so that later
when we get there,

it would be...
it would feel like
it had been established.

That’s the sound barrier.

[breathes heavily]

[Schreier]
Yeah, again, all of this...
this whole structure,

Eric Pearson had set up
so it really remains
from that original draft

of them all being
locked in there

and where it goes
with the fireball.

That they’d be trapped
in a vault,

sent to kill each other
and trapped,

needing to work together
to get out.

And everything
that we talked about
in that early phase

was about, you know,

people thrown together
who could not trust each other,

but were going to need to
in order to get out of this.

Holy shit, Bucky.

The assistant, she’s ductile.

Ductile?

Yeah.

[Schreier]
Love Sebastian in this scene.

He’s so excited about
his spy work, and...
[chuckles] ...Wendell just...

Again, just this idea
of having characters
that can be in this world

where it doesn’t feel like
we’re breaking the fourth wall

or stepping so far
outside of it,

but the character themself
can comment on this idea

of how Bucky
has approached things
in the past

and how that’s not the world
that he’s living in now,

and when you have
Wendell Pierce doing it,
then... then it really lands.

...then let the system
do its job.

The system that
goes on recess
every day at 4:00 p.m.?

We are in a good spot,
I assure you.

My team is putting together
a juicy packet
for the next hearing.

[Schreier] I think Joanna
added this "juicy" stuff.

And when Wendell says "juicy"
and then we do it again later,
it really... [chuckles]

I think there are
a couple takes

where he said "juicy" twice
just to really lean into it,

but I think we landed
on a good, solid one.
Felt like the right place.

...has been
completely sealed off.
All right, then.

[Schreier] And, again, yeah,
this idea of, you know,

an assistant who wants
to prove herself to her boss,

but at the same time,
is uncertain about the path
that they’re going down,

and Julia just having
no patience for that.

Oh, my God.

[Yelena]
Hey. Job or not...

[Schreier] And this...
Okay, sure,
it’s pretty dismissive.

But it feels like, again,
this is honest to
who these characters are

at the beginning of our film
where it is just a job,

and this is what they do.

And, you know,
Florence found it
very important,

even though her character
didn’t know Antonia
directly so well,

but was aware of her story.

You know, wanting to have
some sense of protectiveness
over that idea

that’s still honoring
that she’s a character

who is in a dark place
and doing these things.

You don’t know that for sure.
Could be for anything.

Could be for when
they come to pick me up.

[Schreier chuckles]

Again, yeah, this is more
of that dynamic

that Joanna established
between the three
that I find so fun.

Okay, it’s an incinerator.

Oh, boy. That is no way to go.

Well, how would you
like to die today, Bob?

- Okay, ghost lady.
- Ava.

Sure. Whatever. Don’t care.
We need to get you
through the walls...

[Schreier]
I remember this line.

Look, in these movies,
you’re gonna have to
do some exposition.

What?

"They built it just for her.

It’s gotta have
an independent power source."

I remember Wyatt and Florence
trying to pass this line

back and forth to each other
’cause it was hard to say.

Uh... I think Wyatt was like,
"Maybe you could say that,"

and Florence was like,
"Nah, I think you’ve got it.
I think you’re good."

And Wyatt did very well
with that in the end.

[breathing heavily]

[Schreier] Again, just trying
to seed the sort of origins
of Bob here,

you know, that they don’t pay
quite enough attention to

’cause they’re distracted
with other things.

Move!

[Schreier] But, yeah,
this was sort of the last...

I think the last thing
we filmed in this vault area.

Uh... Getting them out
and that search
during the countdown.

And this was such
an important moment
in the shoot,

’cause as they go to
the door here, they’re waiting
for the countdown.

I remember I went
up to Florence, and, of course,
we hadn’t shot it yet,

and I said,
"Just in this moment,

while you’re waiting to see
if the door will open or not,

just think about being
on that building
from the beginning of the film

and how you feel,
if there’s anything
that you would do

in connecting with
that sense of kind of loss
or hopelessness,"

and she thought
that was so interesting,
and she did...

I mean, we did the next take,
and it was beautiful.

She did this thing
she does here of
closing her eyes,

taking a deep breath,

and perhaps there’s
a form of acceptance,

and then of course
the door opens and she’s out.

But then that became
this memetic idea
for the rest of the movie,

so she does that four times,
the deep breath
and open her eyes--

at the beginning,

then when she steps
into the Void

and then at
the very end of the film.

But that wasn’t written in
as exactly what would happen.

It was a thing that
she did in this moment

based on that idea
that we then took

and translated
to the rest of the film.

I think this is
one of Grace’s
most beautiful sets. Um...

When we talked about doing
the surrealism of the Void,

we really wanted to
try to find a way to...

in sort of a Gondry
or Spike Jonze style,
to do it in-camera.

So you can see here
that if you actually
pay any attention,

that those are just walls
in the background
from the beginning,

but because you’re so focused
on the characters, you don’t.

Those lights in the background
of the red room
in the distance,

that’s just painted
on to the wall,

and those are lights
behind the scrim,
like, built into the wall.

But you’re so in the moment
that you don’t quite
process at first

that this is in fact
a sort of shame room,
as we talk about.

And, yeah, I mean, Grace...
All of these are
real trees painted black.

There’s black sort of soot
underneath the snow.

And the way Andrew lit it,

I mean, everyone just
looks so beautiful
in this scene.

I feel like it’s the first time
our movie really
gets to tell you

there’s gonna be more to this,
you know,
than what you expected.

This is a different...
a different sort of story,

and there’s something going on
underneath the surface there

and connecting
these two characters,
Bob and Yelena.

’Cause, also,
we’ll see this echo,
this idea of, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I’m fine," but,
of course, the way he says it,
he does not seem fine.

And we’ll revisit that idea
at the very end of the film.

Hey. Didn’t think
you’d come back. Thanks.

I had to.
Someone cut the power
to the elevator.

[Schreier]
This is a shot I got in DC.

I wanted to
really go down there.

We had a crew of about four,
getting a few
of those exteriors.

Um... And then this scene,
this is back in Atlanta,

but something Andrew
was really committed to
in this film

was really trying to never use
green screen or LED,

so this is out on location
in Atlanta at night, in a limo,

I think this is, like,
2:00 in the morning.

And poor Julia and Geraldine,
they’d had a long day
of shooting the, um,

the OXE loading-dock scene
before this
and a couple other things,

and then had to do this
at the end of the night.

And, I think, really only had
about three takes,

maybe four,
before we got shut down.

And, yeah,
pulled it off beautifully.

But, again,
I just think it’s so nice
to have that real texture

of what’s out the windows.

Um... And as the camera
pans around,

like, we’re augmenting
those things a little bit

and putting DC
into the background.

But to start from a place
where the shot has real texture

and then all this in-camera,

I just think that approach
really helped the movie out
in so many ways,

and it took such hard work
from so many people on our crew
to make that happen.

It’s also the kind of thing
you can only do

when you have actors like this
that you can trust.

Even though we’re gonna
get fewer takes,

they’re gonna nail this stuff
and pull it off.

This is a Sonny idea.

The whole idea of having
Alexei as a limo driver
was Sonny’s idea.

And this kind of
very Ocean’s overheard
thing here.

Uh, you know, it’s on the edge
of reality, but the lift
of how we’ve seen him

and bring him back
into the movie felt worth it.

Less talking to yourself,
more talking to us.

[Schreier] And, again,
this is this very
limited narrative real estate

to establish
those different corners of Bob,

that there is this kind
of darker, more inward side
that you see for a moment,

but, you know, still very
eager to please when
he presents to other people.

He’s really not trying
to be a bother, but there
being an inner darkness

and then within
that same scene, also needing
to show a little bit more

of the hubristic side
that comes out when Walker
is being such a dick to him.

- Choke hold? Nerve pinch?
- No.

I think he’s just a civilian.

If he’s a civilian,
he knows too much.
If he’s an agent, he sucks.

Either way, I say
we throw him back
into the fire.

[Schreier] This is so good
on Wyatt’s part.

It’s hard sometimes,
’cause sometimes actors

won’t want to play,
uh, "assholes,"
as Bob calls him here,

but I think Wyatt and I
have that trust and knew
where the character was going

and was really willing
to embrace this stuff,

knowing that there would be
a redemptive arc for Walker
in the film.

And he plays it
with such subtlety here

where it’s not just
a cartoon asshole.

And here,
just a little glimmer,
just a glint in the eyes,

we see, okay, there’s
something a little bit more
going on with Bob,

and there is
a bit of that hubris
where he’s not afraid of this,

and he’s not just
docile and depressed.

And we’re-- again,
we’re trying to get each of
those sides of the character

into the film
with as little room as we have.

This scene, of course,
is crucially important

for establishing that idea
of Bob, but also
his connection to Yelena,

and really this idea
of them connecting over
this thing that they both feel.

And it’s very hard, um...

You know, it’s a scene
Sonny wrote multiple times,

and then Joanna, I think,
wrote the final version

of how we got this there,
and it was a lot of rehearsal

with Florence and Lewis
to see if we could...

Again, it’s so quick
to get to this idea of feeling,

you know, borderline suicidal
or feeling this idea
of the Void,

but we need it.
We need it to happen here

so that she’ll feel
that connection for later.

And so we’ll get these hints
of what eventually allows her
to step into the Void.

And this concept of, you know,
that the movie hinges on, of,

"Are we all alone?
Or are we not?"

And, you know,
as simple as an idea
as that sounds,

that’s gonna become
the crux of the ending,

and we have to
establish it here.

This was shot
at hour 12 of a Friday,
I think.

The week that Florence
had come back

from the Oscars on Monday
for Oppenheimer.

We were all so tired
and running out of time.

And I don’t think I knew
until we got into the edit

for sure whether we had it,

but for them to do that,
you know, in just,
I think, three takes...

Uh, actually, maybe really
two takes with a close-up
on his side was all we had.

And maybe three or four
on her side.

And then getting into the edit,

just really carefully
peeling apart the layers,

and it was there,
you know, that connection,

and it’s so important
to what the film becomes.

Look, we’re all alone.

All of us.

[Schreier]
Yeah, so there it is,
that thesis of the movie.

That’s how she views things.

That’s what she’s sort of
come to accept or believes,

and that’s something
that he accepts as well

and why he’s willing
to trust her

is he finds someone
that connects over that,

so they’re kind of connecting
over the idea
of an absence of connection.

But, eventually,
they’re gonna have to
confront that.

[reading indistinctly]

[Schreier] Okay, so the arm.
This little piece of this,
this...

I think we got an additional
of showing why he had to put
the arm in the dishwasher.

Um... But, yeah,
the arm in the dishwasher
was an Eric Pearson beat

from very, very early on
in the script,

from a totally
different structure,

but, uh, just
such a funny thing
to think about for Bucky,

and, I think for our movie,
felt right,

that, you know, we’re trying
to honor, you know,

and live up to a lot of these
great Marvel movies,

but definitely taking
a slightly more
irreverent approach,

and it felt like
such a funny beat
to get in there.

- ...network.
- [Mel] Mm-hmm.

[Schreier] And, again,
here you have this meta
between, you know...

uh, between Bucky
and Mel about, you know,

and Geraldine has talked
about this,

she was in high school
when Avengers came out,

and that’s what she says
in this scene.

And the sense of distance
from that time and how it feels

and how things feel murkier.

You know, Sebastian has
this great line, you know,

"I think we could be
the people that are coming."

You know, that...
You don’t necessarily...

He’s appealing to this idea
that you don’t
necessarily imagine

that’s going to be you,
but sometimes
in the right circumstance,

that’s who it has to be,

and that’s what Mel
is really grappling with here.

You must really
not know my boss.

We can protect you.

[Schreier] But also,
it’s important
for Bucky’s character

to find himself
in this position of saying,

"I don’t do that anymore.
I’m trying to do things
in a different way."

And, you know,
Mel really pokes at that.

"Is that coming from
the freshman congressman

who can’t get a bill passed
or the Winter Soldier?"

So really trying to
build up all of this,

even if it feels
like a slow burn for Bucky,

is to buy you that moment
where he comes back
on that bike later,

and it feels so triumphant
because he felt the frustration

of trying to do it
a different way.

Okay, so the elevator shaft.

This was one of
the earliest sequences
that we talked about

when I was pitching
on the film.

There was
an elevator shaft sequence

that they got up
in a very different way.

And something I talked about
in that first pitch

is that we really wanted
in this movie to feel like
these are action scenes

that maybe they
could accomplish if
they could work together well,

but they can’t,
so it doesn’t happen,

and needing to
really rely on each other

and trust each other,
or they’re gonna die.

So, I think Brian Chapek,
our executive producer,

had this idea
in that early pitch

about what if
they’re just back-to-back?

And they really, like...
They would fall
without each other.

And it’s just... [chuckles]
It’s so funny to think about,

and I think
we used to refer to it
as the, uh,

least dynamic action sequence
in Marvel history,

that they’re just crawling up
this thing together.

But it also
gives us a way, you know...

Obviously you want to
spend time building
connections with characters,

understanding backstories,
having them share things,

but in this way,
you get to do that as
part of, again, a action scene,

used liberally, perhaps,
because, uh,
it’s not very active,

but, uh, it is at least
part of an action
of where they’re going

where you’re not just pausing
to talk and expose things.

Like, it’s all happening
as part of the trajectory
and the journey up.

And, again, this is where
we start to feel
we’ve seen all of these things.

We’ve seen her go down
that elevator shaft.

We know each piece
of the journey that
they’re gonna have to take up.

That we-- You know,
she said "a mile down" when
we look up here at the end.

Maybe we didn’t realize
quite exactly how far
that was gonna be for them.

And this, again, is filmed
predominantly practically.

Any of these close-ups.
We built two 64-foot
elevator shafts.

The lighting is all real.

Obviously, it’s set extension
when we look at
something like that,

but even the foreground
of those shots is real

and an in-camera set
that Grace built, uh,

just so that everything
is based on, uh,
real textures and real sets.

Oh, God.

[Mel gasps]

[Schreier]
I love this Joanna line.

"Please don’t gasp at work."

I don’t know where
she came up with that,

but I love it so much.

Um, if you wanna look
under the hood,
this is actually...

Later, you’ll see
a helicopter in this film,

and I know it’s a Marvel movie
and we have a lot of resources,

but there are always
budgets to adhere to

and coming out of the strikes,
we had to trim here and there,

so part of the way we did that
was this interior of
Val’s special airplane

is actually also
just the helicopter set
that we reconfigured for this.

Maybe, uh... Maybe I shouldn’t
tell you guys that,
but it’s still filmmaking.

At any level, at some point,
you have to find ways
to be creative

and, uh--
and use what you’ve got.

Um... And this, you know,
yes, there’s a lot of
exposition here,

but this scene
we leaned on a lot
to kind of establish Val’s plan

because it is
a sort of unusual thing
for a movie like this

where it’s not that she starts
with a dastardly plan.

She had a plan. It failed.
She’s getting rid
of the evidence,

and then, all of a sudden,
when it seems like
it might work,

she’s gonna pivot
in the middle of the movie

to try and go
on a different path,
and that’s unusual,

but, I thought, interesting
for a character like Val

who’s complicated and gray
and not necessarily
your typical villain.

Then the other three
immediately fall.

Shit.

[Bob] Sorry. Yeah,
I guess I didn’t...

I didn’t really think
this far ahead.

Genius plan, Bobby.

Always making things worse.

[Schreier]
"Always making things worse."

Maybe on your sixth viewing,
you notice he says that,

and that connects
to his ending.

I don’t know. I wanted
to leave it in
because I liked it.

Uh, so coming up,
this cucumber idea.

This is a Eric Pearson
original,

and there’s
a funny story to this
’cause it’s, uh...

His girlfriend Ashley would
always say "cucumber,"

and then we were
at the premiere,

and I said, "We got
your cucumber thing in there."

She looked at me like
she didn’t understand
what I was talking about.

And then I talked to Eric
who said, apparently,

she genuinely believed
that everyone
in the Western world

said "cucumber"
to avoid a sneeze

and didn’t realize
it was only her.

She asked her mom,
and her mom didn’t know

what she was talking about,
so, uh...

And then this was
a really great Joanna add
here at the end,

to have the, uh, the sneeze
punctuate this action sequence.

[sneezes]

You selfish prick.

[Schreier] So, again,
finding ourselves
in these sets that,

you know,
even if it seems small,

just seeing Yelena
walk through this
in the beginning,

and now we’re back here again
really trying
to understand the space

and understand this world
that we’re grounded in.

And then again
it’s this idea because Bob
just came near death

and is angry at Walker,
that puts him into
this Void space

where it’s not just
anytime you touch Bob,
you go into a Void,

but it’s when he’s
at his darkest,
and you connect to that.

Um, and this is another one
where we probably
could’ve built the set.

We filmed this on location.

Um, if you want
a very small Easter egg,

that little silver mug
on the shelves over there
is a mug from Lodge 49

for the 11 to 15 Lodge fans
that are watching this
for me and Wyatt.

Um...

But yeah, just that thought...
You know,
this was such a nice...

You know, Sonny had written
a kind of domestic scene,

and Joanna took it further
of just this very small idea

of not watching the kid, uh,
because you’re lost
in your own shame.

You know,
and this way of kind of
addressing Walker’s past

and this terrible thing
that he’s done,

but not in the expected way
of going back to that moment

or something more active,
but in this sort of...

the way that it reverberates
within his life

and, you know, what he’s gonna
end up losing because of that.

And that was actually
Wyatt’s addition,
um, to have Walker have a kid.

’Cause, at first,
it was just about losing
that relationship with Olivia,

but he felt like
people would care
and invest more deeply,

and I thought that was
a really great add on his part.

And also the first time
you kind of see inside
the humanity of that character,

which we’re eventually
gonna connect with much more.

So now we’ve finally connected
all of those spaces
back to the front.

Um, again, this whole plaza
was built for real.

It’s obviously extended in CG,

um, but always trying
to combine those elements.

Um, Framestore did a great job
building this whole sequence

folding that CG
in a very integrated way.

...I might just surrender,
probably.

Okay, fine.
Every man for himself.

[Schreier] Uh,
this is one of the more
fun conversations

in the film.

Well, let’s see.

[Schreier chuckles]
Wyatt just leans into
this so great,

the "Back-to-back-to-back.
Go Bears."

But, of course,
this is our way of getting

the Thunderbolts name
into this movie.

Um, and, again,

that soccer team of mine that--
that never won a game.

Um, but it-it does establish
this nice idea of, you know,

Yelena trying to
push this past away,

but eventually Alexei
will allude to that
and show how,

even within that context,
that was a way in which
she cared for others.

And this, of course,
is us trying to plant

that sign-twirling
meth chicken... [chuckles]

...if we can get that
into the movie so that
you’ll remember it later.

Uh, but, again,
just this idea of a team

that is the last team
you would want to try
to break out of anything with.

Um, exceptionally ragtag.

- It will only work if you wait.
- Terrible plan.

[Schreier]
This is very small here,
but, uh, "What about me?"

Um, we’re really trying to
establish this idea, again,

of Bob as this d--

You know, duality
between hubris and despair,

but, uh, this is
the sweet version of him.

He wants to help,
but it’s not just
that he wants to help

’cause he’s a sweet guy. It’s--

Bob wants to matter.

He wants to mean something.
He wants to be something.

That’s gonna feed,
even if it’s very subtle
when you see it there,

that’s gonna feed later
into this idea of The Sentry.

Uh, very, very kind
of Chris Bauer
to come and do this for us.

He’s another actor
that I’ve loved
for a long time.

Obviously, I love The Wire,
uh, with both him and Wendell.

Um, and Kevin said to us,

you know, I think
when we first
had Holt in the script...

He was a little bit more
just a military guy,
and he said,

"I always love in,
you know, in Die Hard,

the FBI guys,
there’s a thing with them.

Can you give it anything?"

And Sonny--
It’s a very Sonny line,
this, uh,

"I spend a lot of time
planning for lethal..."

Just, you know, even amidst
all of this tension,

that there’s just a guy
frustrated at the bureaucracy

and the way he would
like to do his job

versus the way
Val is telling him to do it.

George Cottle,
uh, Chris Nolan’s
longtime stunt coordinator,

uh, worked on
Spider-Man as well,

was our second unit director
on this along with Paul Hughen,

whose, uh, second unit
DP filmed all of those,
uh, laser shots

which are so cool.

Um, and if you want me
to really pull...
just... [chuckles]

...remove some of
the magic to this world,

so all of these hallways,
everything inside
this building,

that’s the same, uh, kinda...
same hallway set,
every one of these.

Grace did a great job
putting these machines into it

and putting things
on the back walls
to make it feel different.

But, again, I know it seems
hard to believe
on a movie like this,

but you do have to make
budget concessions and find
places to tighten your belt

so that you can do some of
the other crazy things
like own a whole road in Utah

or be on the top of
the second tallest building
in the world in Malaysia.

So it is funny to go through
all the Marvel films
and see the hallways.

Y-You always end up
in a hallway
somewhere or another.

Um, but this scene
which Joanna wrote
is another lovely example.

We have, again,
this very little
narrative real estate

to establish
these two characters,

and their connection
is gonna be
the crux of the film.

And also this neat little idea
in here where, you know,

Yelena could’ve heard
what he’s talking about
and really connected,

but she’s in her own world
and not paying attention

or how she just kind of
doesn’t pick up
on what Bob is saying

even though he’s talking
about establishing that past

and the memory loss
and the highs and the lows
and what he’s been through.

But still, if we get any hint
of connection between
the two of them here,

it’s gonna pay dividends
down the road in this film.

Give me that. Follow me.

I hate to say it,
but I think Walter
was right on this one.

[Schreier] I love Lewis’s
little hop there

and then the way
he bounces out of frame.

Small things.

Turn on the lights, Yelena.

[Schreier] Again, same hallway.
[chuckles]

Same sets. And, uh, very hard.

You know, Andrew did
such a beautiful job here.

It’s a tough situation
to give a DP
when the lights are off,

but you have to see things
and how you approach
lighting that.

Um, Andrew had such
a great rapport with,
uh, Chuck and Rafi Sánchez,

uh, our key grip
and our gaffer on this film.

And Andrew and Rafi
really building that together

and did a great job in
a very difficult circumstance.

- Where is he?
- He’s gone.

[Schreier]
If I’m allowed to say this
on a commentary track,

I would say, you know,
I’m proud of a lot of
the work in this film.

I’m so proud of
everyone else who made it.

Uh, this is not a sequence
that I am the proudest of.

Um, sometimes, you know,
you’re focusing on things,

and I think it ends up working.
I like the concept of it.

This idea of a sequence
in which the action is
that Yelena has to protect Bob

while also taking out
a set of guards,

but we just didn’t end up with
quite the amount
of time to focus on it

that I was hoping to.

And I think in the end,
like, once the effects are in,

and you add all the smoke,
like, it works out.

And the concept sells,
which is much more important

as to whether
it’s breathtaking or not,

but I think if we’re really
getting into it,

this is a place where
I feel like if I had to
do it again, I think...

[swallows] ...maybe we could--
could’ve done it
a little better, but...

Sliding into
director brain there.

But I-I think what’s nice
is that throughout post

and with some of the additions
that Base FX added to it

as well as when you have
that smoke in there and
the effects on top, it sells.

Also, it’s a lot of ADR lines
to carry you through it.

And then when you
get to this, it’s funny

’cause it’s
just such a small scene
in a dingy hallway,

but that kind of
brother-sister-
yelling-at-each-other feeling.

The... [inhales deeply]

How-- How frayed this team--
Uh, if it-- if it even
is that-- uh, is.

Like, it’s what you’re really
trying to get towards.

...what she was supposed to,
maybe we’ll all get out
of here alive.

[Schreier] Another shot
that George got for us.
Great overhead.

And, again, this is,
you know, a moment

that maybe isn’t really
narratively important,
and we did consider cutting,

but I just thought that
since they don’t confront Val
until so late in the movie,

that it was important
to see these characters

who thought that they
were destined for better things

have one moment like
a brush past the person
who did this to them

and unable to really,
in this context,
do anything about it.

But just to sit
in that moment and feel it.

You never know
with these things.

Pace is important,
but I just felt like
that was a beat

that we wanted to keep
in the edit that I tried
to keep in till the end.

Get in.

[Schreier] This was
a tough four nights
shooting this.

I think it was raining
half the time,

which maybe sometimes
you can see in the background,
but, uh... Yeah.

Andrew and Jason Tamez,
our wonderful line producer,

Jeff Okabayashi, our AD,
really pulled me through
on this sequence

’cause I started with saying,
"It’s raining. We can’t do it."

And they were like, "We shoot.
If we can shoot, we shoot."

Uh, and over the course
of those four nights,

got all of this
predominantly in-camera.

We’re just extending the skies
and the background.

We didn’t end up
adding anything
to this sequence.

There were never
any pickups for it. Like,
it all worked in the edit.

And, again, that’s credit
to Harry being there
on set for this sequence.

And Angela just
cutting the stuff in
as we went,

making sure that it worked,
checking in about
what else we needed

so that by the time
we got through
those four nights,

we had every piece
of this sequence.

Now what?

[Schreier]
That’s a very funny Joanna add.

Again, Walker’s sort of
self-confidence

and sometimes lack of skills
in the areas that
he thinks he’s great at.

Um, but, again,

having planted this earlier
about Bob’s desire to help,

you know, we’re gonna see that
come into play here

where he really wants
to be of use,
he wants to be important.

And there’s
a good side to that.

He’s doing
a very selfless thing here.

But also we’ll see
later in the film,

there’s a desire to matter
that, you know,

in the wrong context,
if appealed to,
can lead to dangerous things.

And, again, at night.
Middle of the night. Raining.

But, you know,
when you’re on Florence,
even if it’s two takes

in a truck that’s making
too much noise
and smells like gas,

the emotion on her face,
you know, it sells so much.

- What the hell are you doing?
- This has gone far--

[Schreier] When I first
talked to Julia
about the film, she said,

"I wanna punch someone.
I wanna beat someone up
in the movie."

Uh, so we got that
in there for her.

I knew there was someplace
we could put it.

Come on. Let’s go.

[Schreier] And, again,
seems a little cold,
but that is why he did it,

and in their circumstances,
if he’s dead,
as they assume he is,

it’s time to go.

And this is, I think,
Andrew’s favorite shot
in the film.

One of my favorites
of knowing Bob
was gonna step up into this.

Uh, and really that moment
where you finally...
We’ve teased it, you know,

that this guy that
you think is the least
valuable member of the team

might actually be
the most powerful and exactly
what Val needs for her plan.

And his sort of anger
at being discarded.

Like, seeing these other sides
of him come out

amidst this action sequence,
seeing that he can fly.

You know, it’s--
it’s kind of in our--

in our world,
an origin story for The Sentry.

So it’s always teasing
these little bits of powers
and flying up into the sky.

This is another,
I’ll just say it--
I’ll let you in on--

I think Framestore did
a beautiful job
on this sequence,

but, uh, in general,
I would not advise
putting yourself in a position

where you have
no motivated lighting
whatsoever

except the moon
and a full night sky.

Um... See, even when
you have just those lights

that you can see down below,
those shots work better,

but it’s very tough when
you’re putting yourself
in a position like this.

Jake Morrison calls it AB,
where it’s just
your character against,

uh, you know...
We didn’t do blue screen.
We did gray screen for this,

but just against a background
that’s being replaced,

and it’s something that
I think we did a great job of
avoiding so much in this movie.

Like that whole wall
behind them there,

that entire building,
40 foot high, that’s real.

Their heads being against that
allows you to do sky extension,
and it looks right.

Or having that
motivated lighting
on the ground.

That shot is actually real,
out in Utah, of the truck,

but in just a couple
of these shots,

we put ourselves in a situation
where we are reliant on CG.

This looks better
’cause of the lights,

and it looks great,
this explosion.

So, it’s-it’s nothing on...

You know,
I think sometimes
visual effects companies

get judged on how things look,
and it has--
it has much more to do

with the concept and execution
of how you gathered
those elements

’cause in the right position,
Framestore did incredible work
on this sequence,

and it’s more on me to--

to concept things in a way that
puts us in the best chance,
uh, to succeed.

This is now out
entirely in Utah.

I mean, the amount of cabling
and lights that Rafi and Andrew
had to bring in

for that shot
and this whole sequence
was enormous.

And, you know, it’s subtle.

Like, could you do it
on a gray screen

back in Atlanta
and comp this in?

You could,
but we just felt like

this was where we wanted
to put our resources.

We wanted to really
have this film
feel like it was out there

as much as possible.

And whether you notice it
or not,

in every moment where
you could’ve gotten away with
something else,

over the course of time,

I think that that texture
really gets into the work.

[Ava]
"Golden Guardian of Good."

[Schreier] This was something,
you know, obviously

we love those--
that initial run

of Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee
of The Sentry,

and Kevin was always pushing us
to see if there was
a way to get some

of those meta ideas
that are in that comic
into the movie.

It’s hard to do. We can’t
do the strange erasing
everyone’s memory thing,

or put Sentry
throughout history.

I mean, that would be
an amazing story,

but for obvious reasons,

different things have owned
that corner of the MCU.

But even that, th--
a lot of that stuff

came from our own concept art
for designing The Sentry.

And the idea that
they would be looking
at those as marketing materials

that Val would have
for The Sentry

became our way
of getting into that

kind of sense of the meta
in The Sentry creation.

This scene is also
just very important for
tying their fates together

and, again, paying off
as they talk about it here,

what happened to Antonia
and the idea that that
could be any of them,

and that’s likely
where they’re headed
if they don’t find a bond

or a way out of this life.

And then I think Wyatt does
such beautiful work here

of, uh-- of covering,
you know, the story that
he’s been telling them

and telling himself.

But you can see underneath,
uh, for a moment,

you know,
he sort of forgets himself

and admits to
how he really feels.

Uh, and we’ll see that
paid off later.

...just keep working
at it every day.

[Schreier] But, yeah,
Sonny always felt we need
some kind of campfire scene.

We need a pause here
at the end of all that action

just to bind
these characters together
and start building those ties.

And then this... [chuckles]

I think Joanna wrote
the Dr. Phil thing,

and then this whole run here,
this was just Wyatt

and, uh, his true understanding
of Dr. Phil

and whether he’s on air
or not anymore.

I love let--
just letting this trail off.
That’s just for me.

But it does get laughs
in the theater.

Well, it isn’t great.

[Schreier]
This was a tough shot to get.

This is actually
on this mountain in Utah

and so hard to get
the technocrane out there.

And for Grace and her team
to build at least
a version of that crater.

That’s a real helicopter.
Uh-- I mean, that,

what you see is CG
laid over an actual helicopter

and an actual box
that it’s tethered
to on the ground,

and we did a real airlift
to get this in here.

But, again, you don’t have to,

but, uh, we’re trying
to really kind of
put a stake in the ground

that, you know, we were making
this Marvel movie differently.

And really out there.
God, the vistas
are just so beautiful.

I mean, Grace really fought
to get us out to Utah

’cause of the rock textures
and the tonality.

The sort of cyan in the shadows
and the more beige textures

as opposed to the reds
in New Mexico which, again,

seems like a... a funny thing
to be able to consider,
but if you have the resources,

putting it towards that
and really being out
in this incredible vista

at magic hour
with a real helicopter.

This airlift is
entirely in-camera
except for, you know...

They don’t make
OXE-designed helicopters,
so we’re laying over that,

but the entire rest
of the shot is real.

And this too.
Just another great vista,

and having them actually
in this environment,
this texture.

And you really feel like,
you know,

we’ve been, you know,
hemmed in so much
with the movie,

and in this, you know,
intentionally contained space

that it’s nice
for the movie to feel like
it’s opening up here.

All right, Walker, we get it.
You were in the military.

Five or ten clicks
to the bird.
Da-da-da-da-da!

[Schreier] And then
this very funny...
This, again, part of the limo.

The Sonny addition of...
[chuckles]
...Yelena’s dad showing up

and exactly how you would feel
if you were... [chuckles]

...you know,
just with your friends
leaving soccer,

and your dad showed up
in his ridiculous car,

and how embarrassed you’d be,

but to do that in the middle
of an action movie

is a very funny thing
to tie together.

And of course, David just...
[inhales deeply]
...leans into it so hard

and, you know,
never shies away from that
and brings every bit of it.

But I love also that
you’re doing
that kind of comedy

but with
these beautiful vistas,

and you really feel
the texture of just
actually being out there

and shooting that wide shot
and having all of these mesas
in the distance.

You know,
it’s this weird intersection
of our movie

where it is a very
kind of silly humor sometimes

that is married with visuals
that treat it
a little bit more seriously,

and if that works for you,
then that is this kind of tone
that we’re going after.

I got this shot myself.
[chuckles]

I was on the tripod,
found this spot down the road.

This is this road that we owned
for this whole sequence.

Uh, and I actually went back
and reshot it
’cause it turned out...

You know,
we waited for magic hour,

and, uh, you actually
want those mesas
to be a bit more front lit

so you get the shadows
to show up a little more.

It gives more shape
to the mesas.

I felt like, "Oh,
we came all the way out here
and got the timing wrong."

So went back out
and got it one more time
before we left Utah.

Um, I have a picture of me
and just a silly little set
of baby stick tripod legs,

uh, and a little crew out there
getting the shot,
which was fun.

And this whole sequence,
I mean, this was something
Andrew really pushed for,

was, again,
this is out on the road
in a hundred-degree heat.

The AC in this car
is breaking down.

We had, I think,
three red limos.
Or two. I can’t remember now.

They all broke.
Everything broke.

Uh, but they’re in there and,
you know, a lot of the sound
we didn’t replace.

I love the sound of kind of
the rig on the...

the shading rig
on top of the car

and the way it rattled
and the noises in this car.

It meant, you know...
It means the actors
get fewer takes,

but when you have
actors like this,
like David, you know,

we had a long run of road,
and we would stop, give notes

and then keep going
down the road.

But once you turned around,
it took so long
to turn this thing around

and to put on
the new camera mounts

that you really had to
get it in that run.

They had four takes each
for each of these setups.

Uh, but, yeah,
Andrew was just
committed to this idea

that it’ll just look better
if it’s out there.

It’s hard to do LED
or green screen

for a car this big
and have it feel real.

And, again,
just the texture for the actors

and the way they’re talking
and speaking
over that environment.

Just trying to put
our resources into really
going out there and doing it.

It was crazy.
I was yelling at the ref.

[Schreier]
Great improv by David here.

Uh... "A girl who pooped."

And this-- this whole...

The Shane and Dmitri
was a Sonny addition.

And the Shane,
"He didn’t have
that kind of money,"

that’s a great Sonny add.

What about this Bob
you mentioned?
What’s the plan?

[Schreier]
There is also this moment

that I sort of skipped over
in there that’s very important,

where, again,
you have such little
real estate where Alexei says,

"The light inside...
Whatever it is..."

Or, "Whatever they are,
the light inside you
is brighter."

So we have to establish
in her performance,

and it’s so subtle
on Florence’s part,

that she gives Walker
a little bit of credence.

And, again, there’s nothing
to be so happy about
at this point in the movie,

but just that there’s
a little bit of lightness

in the performance
for him to pick up on,

so that you can establish that
and go into that kind
of extreme close-up

where you can see that,
where she’s trying to process

that he sees that in her
even if she doesn’t want
to admit it about herself.

Those are the kind of things
we talked about
in building this scene

as well as all of the comedy.

- Do you understand?
You don’t understand.
- I do. You don’t.

[Schreier]
I love that read from David.
It’s so childish.

...is going to use the power
of this Sentry Project...

Yes.
...to take over
and kill us all.

[Schreier] And then here
our action sequence begins.

So we-- we were out there for,
I think, two weeks in Utah.

Um, this sequence, maybe,
I think we shot
in seven days, I wanna say.

We didn’t really
have a second unit,

but George was out there
with the splinter unit

down the road
with a camera car.

And at some point,
after we got kind of
the actors’ parts of it,

it was just both of us
just shooting action shots,

and he would text me
what he was getting
on an iPhone,

and we’d make notes,
and just building this
piece by piece.

Again, we had this boarded out.
Vinny Dellay, one of our,
uh, great storyboard artists,

we worked on this a lot, uh,
before we went out there,

and it was in the edit.

Uh, and Harry was in a...
You know,
there’s no tent out there,

but we were in a kind
of camera van that we had
the editing rig built into.

And just each shot,
just cutting it in

over the course
of seven shooting days.

Just building this
piece by piece
along with the boards

and, you know,
seeing that it worked.

You know, figuring out
what we needed to add in,
but it really...

It’s fun watching back
and knowing that you were there
for each of these pieces.

You know, it was--
it was all-- it was all of us
just making this happen.

Okay, not really appropriate.

[Schreier] That, uh--
The pony thing was
a Jon Watts joke suggestion.

He was nice enough
to lend us that one.

Uh, I think--
I think the song "Pony,"
I think, was my pick.

It was gonna be that
or Exile, uh,
"Kiss You All Over."

Even that shot, we shot for--
I mean the bottle is CG,

but, you know,
tracking in its trajectory,

we threw a real bottle
out of there

that obviously didn’t stay up
as long as that.

But really, you know,

the bullet hits and some things
in the sequence are added,

but almost every single thing
you see in frame is practical.

The dust, you know,
being along these Humvees.

You know... [stammers]
...Jake Morrison, again,

it was that-- that precept
of everything in-camera,

and if it does not--
if nothing else,
it’s incredible reference

so that the CG
has direct reference

of what that thing’s supposed
to look like out there.

But there’s very few shots
with any real major CG in this.

Sometimes it’s the--
the firing or the gun turrets.

Those will get added,
but there’s a ref--

You know, we’re shooting
with a real one on location.

It’s Florence
right out of the window.
No rigging.

And that explosion is real.
That flip.

I mean... [chuckles]
...it was tough
getting those flips.

We didn’t have
any backup Humvees.

Again, that was part of being
a little bit more frugal.

So I think that,
if I’m not wrong, was
Shane Habberstad’s, uh, Humvee,

and he had to get it of
into that dirt and make sure
those tires caught

so that he’d get a proper flip.

And I think this one
is Noon Orsatti.

Incredible stuntman.
Longtime stuntman.

Uh, that one flipped
a little bit easier,

not that it’s easy
to be in that thing.

And then here comes Bucky.

And, again, that’s real dust
blowing across the road.

You know, everything out there,
you’re just in
this incredible playground

where it’s really hard,
it’s really hot,
but, you know...

I think what was nice about it
is the "hard" goes on screen,

and everything that was
difficult about it is also
what makes it breathtaking

and shooting it in full IMAX.

Uh, Joe, what-- Maybe the best,
uh, motorcycle stunt rider
in the world

doing all of these.
That wide shot
looks like it’s CG. It’s not.

That’s just how fast
he was going on that bike.

Uh, and, yeah, I think
this ending piece
was a George suggestion

about using the winch
and shooting that off.

And this, I think,
maybe right here, the flip,

I mean,
that’s not sky replacement.

Uh, it really looked like this
when this--
this Humvee flipped.

It was the last thing
we shot out on that road
and got it with a drone.

Uh, all of this
stuff in-camera.

Um, and just to be out there
getting stuff like that

and, you know,
being on the edge of
whether you can get it or not,

it’s just such a great feeling.

Oh, sh--

[Schreier] Another one
of my little DC pickups.

We didn’t bring
balls and charts for this,
so, uh, I had to bring...

I got, uh, Christmas
ornaments... [chuckles]
...for lighting reference.

And then this was, uh...

This was...
This did come in
additional with Wendell,

and we just felt like
we needed to sort of
keep the stakes

and the pressure up on Val
in the movie,

and it’s another chance
for Wendell to say, "Juicy,"

so that’s always worth it.

Um, and this is,
you know, again,

when you talk about AB
with effects, you know...

Sure, they’re against gray.
They’re not up on this roof.

But they’re outside,
something Jake Morrison
always insisted on,

and we have that real
helicopter behind their heads
for enough of it,

so at least you have
the foreground
and the mid-ground

if not the background
that gets added,

and even just
that little element
helps it sit in much better.

Or choices like this where,
you know, as opposed to
building a set,

you know, that’s an actual
abandoned floor in Atlanta
with a real city outside

that isn’t New York,
but the value of it being real
and then adding some things

out the windows as opposed
to creating it all with a set

and green screen out
the windows is worth it
for that sense of texture.

I would love
for this to be my bedroom.

I’ve told Grace this
multiple times.

I love this design of hers.
I would sleep here,
in this recovery room.

I would be Bob.

This scene was in
many, many drafts
of the script,

and, ultimately, Joanna,
you know, really brought

this really interesting
dynamic to the scene

that I thought was
so interesting of the way
that someone like Val

can play upon the sort of
insecurities and desires

of a character like Bob,

who really does
just wanna matter
and wants to be important

and wants to
do the right thing,

but, you know,
that can very easily
get confused

with the sense of, you know,
validation, or importance,
or feeling left out,

and, you know, this idea
that that can really
lead you down the wrong path

if you meet up with
the wrong people or if
you’re in the wrong hands.

And you know,
we see a little bit
of that in Alexei,

and all of them
are grappling with
their own versions of that.

But of course,
Bob is so powerful

that you’re really
playing with fire here,

which is what Mel
keeps suggesting to Val,

and Val, of course,
thinks that she always
can gain the upper hand,

but she-- she’s not
exactly aware of what
she’s dealing with in Bob.

And, you know,
just watching the way
they play off of each other

and the way that, kind of,
Val massages him into this.

And I was there
with Joanna on set.

She was there this day,
and I was at the monitor,

and she’s like,
"You’re doing such a good job."

I was like, "Are you...
Are you Valling me right now?"

"Is that what’s happening?"
I said.

And I could see it.
She had written it
and she was doing it to me

at the same time.

And so, that was fun to watch.

But yeah, again,
just such subtlety in Lewis

of needing to now portray
some of that darkness in there

along with the desire of this--
you know, seeing this belt,

which is a symbol
of meaning something,
of being important,

of being what other people
couldn’t see.

Because Yelena truly
has come to care for him,

even in this limited time,

but it’s in this way
that Val will later
describe as pity,

you know, as opposed to
someone seeing him, you know...

Yelena says, "Stay behind me.
I have it.
I’ll take care of you."

And Val is coming to him
and saying, "You could be
something much more than that."

We actually-- This was
part of a-- an additional
photography, uh, piece,

where I initially thought
because we were talking about,
uh, Bob’s backstory

that you would expect
to go into his past,

and we had a preview
of his addict scene

that Val went into.

In testing, it was nice,
’cause people did understand

the concept of the Void,
but they got very frustrated
at that sequence

and said, "Why isn’t it Val’s?
It’s always someone else’s."

And so we got to add
this, uh, really nice scene

that Joanna wrote, you know.

And, I mean
it’s just a testament...
I mean, these are...

Uh, Chiara,
who plays the little girl,
these are great actors,

’cause a scene like this
being dropped in the melodrama
like this is so delicate.

And you have some leeway
in a comic book movie
to do that, I think,

to have these
kind of heightened backstories.

I mean, who’s to say?
We had a lot of discussion.

I mean,
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

Is that Italian?
Is that French?
You know, we went with Italian.

Um, and it gives you
a little bit of that distance.

Um, and, you know,
tries to show you a window

into how Val has become
what she’s become,

which is this idea that,
you know, if it’s a story
about isolation

and, you know,
the damage that that can cause,

you know,
if Val is just sort of
someone like them,

but who never found
anyone else to lift her
out of that place,

she has hardened
into what she has become.

But she’s starting
from a similar place,

that there is
a point of connection

even between your antagonist
and your protagonists,

that they all share.

All right,
let’s get the press here
in the morning.

It’s time to show everyone
what I’ve been working on.

Val, you put a serum into
someone like Steve Rogers...

[Schreier] I do think we added
a number of things.

We came back to this scene
’cause it was where we

really needed to establish
that concept of,

you know, that you’re
playing with fire here.

And, you know, that--
Yeah, that Bob and The Sentry,

and it’s about an
internal conflict that he has

that is exacerbated
by the serum

and turned into world stakes
and, you know, superhero levels
by the serum.

That-That concept that
it starts with
what’s inside of you,

which I think
a lot of people watching
will understand implicitly

from watching
a lot of these movies,

but that we maybe
needed to define
for more of the audience.

This was a beautiful
gas station
in Green River, Utah,

and this is not a set
on the inside,

even though
we probably could’ve
done it that way.

But everything
that’s outside those windows
were really there.

Uh, and Grace did such a
great job of dressing this,
uh, for this scene,

and this scene
was a very complicated one.

And this is towards the end
of our shoot.

It’s one of the last things
we shot with our principals
in Utah.

And it needs to do
such heavy lifting

to kinda have
all of your characters
get together by the end of it

when they start
on opposite places.

And I thought
what Joanna did...

You know,
there are these
little deft turns

in the way that they’re trying
to convince Bucky about Bob,

you know,
that they believe
that there’s a threat,

but they themselves
do not see themselves as worthy

of going after it
and are just
trying to escape it.

But he doesn’t even believe
in the thing
that they’re telling him.

And using this kind of humor
of the repetition of "Bob"
to establish that

is such a neat way to get you,
’cause it has to do so much

in such a compressed
amount of time
to keep the story moving,

and it was so impressive
how she did that.

I know it’s been hard
since Olivia left you
and took your kid,

but still, this is on you.

[Schreier] And this is
such a nice moment
of acting between...

between Wyatt
and Florence here.

And we didn’t want to lean
into the music for it.

Just this recognition,
on her part,

that he, of course,
is struggling
with the same thing

that she has struggled with,
in his own way,

and that all of that
bravado and bluster
is really masking

feeling very similar
to the way that she feels,

and, you know,
the way they share that
with just such tiny looks.

When you have actors like this,
you can...
you can accomplish a lot,

but, you know, we’re so...

They’re the magic
that makes any
of this stuff work,

and I was lucky
to have some of the very best
in every single role.

I mean, Project Sentry is not
just a failure. It’s dangerous.

[Schreier]
And, yeah, that’s our movie.

To do that and have that
really nicely observed
character moment

and then the kind of
near silliness
of this "Bob" repetition.

And, again,
if it doesn’t work for you,
I understand.

You know, it’s an--

It’s an interesting tonal
set of things to hold,

but, uh, yeah,
that’s our movie.

[Mel] The press are set
to come tomorrow morning.

Someone has to do something.

Shit. Okay, I have to go.
But come now, please.

Bring anyone.
Everyone you can.

[Schreier] I love this, uh,
"How many times?"
from David here.

Bob.

- Bob.
- How many times?

[Schreier] But sometimes,
it gets--

The first "Bob"
gets a big enough laugh,

then you don’t get to hear it,
but you at home,

uh, with just your friends,
will get to--
will get to hear that one.

And then, yeah, this big shift
where Bucky has to
take this turn

and bring these folks
along with him,

and needing to establish
there’s enough time pressure
that that makes sense.

And then Sebastian
really worked very hard

and essentially
wrote this speech himself

to make it honest
to the way that Bucky speaks

and kind of appealing
to the sense of, you know,
shared past and emptiness.

And this really becomes
Bucky’s role in our movie,
is he has--

You know,
he’s gone through that therapy
in Falcon and Winter Soldier.

He has processed
the things, you know,
that they haven’t yet,

and he knows where it leads
if you don’t,

and just that idea of
you have the wrong people,

but no, actually,
you are the right people,

if you can overcome it.

So you can either
do something about it now,

or live with it forever.

[Schreier] I haven’t
mentioned Son Lux yet,

but this beautiful theme,
you know, to their score,

with kind of a hint
of the Thunderbolts* theme

and uniting these characters,

but just played very gently
in the background

where we’re not
leaning into it too much.

And you get room for
how subtle they’re
being in that,

and then, of course, uh,

Alexei is not a subtle man.

Yes!

Yeah!

[Schreier] This is a scene
that used to be much longer
and was very fun.

Then again,
there are a lot of these
parts of the movie where...

There’s very, very few scenes
that were cut whole cloth
from the film.

The movie that you’re watching,
you know, is essentially...

Those are the scenes
that we shot,

but we definitely
pared things down
for time and pace.

And this used to be
a longer exploration
of this kind of idea

about youthful idealism
and the way that power actually
functions in the world.

And just for overall time

and needing to spend
a little bit more time
with Bob learning his powers,

we did trim this down,
but I still love,
uh, what Joanna wrote here

about a bad guy and a worse guy
and nothing else,

and that really is Val’s ethos,

which is not that
she aspires to be a bad guy,

but she just believes
that she sees the truth
in the world,

which is that it’s all
just a set of grays
and people aspiring for power,

and if that’s
how the world works,

then you wanna be the one
with the most power,

and that’s something
that Mel just hasn’t
come to terms with yet.

This was another place
where we wanted to have fun

with the meta of Sentry.

Um, all of those things
that you see
in the background there,

um, those are the actual...
[chuckles] ...costume pieces
and, uh, concepts

for the development
of The Sentry costume,

and it felt like
what Val was doing
in our movie

is the same thing
Marvel does so well,
which is build superheroes,

and you would need to make
a costume for one,

so we thought it would be fun
to kind of wink at that

by having
the actual development.

Those are-- Russell Bobbitt,
our wonderful prop master,

longtime Marvel prop master,
those are his
3D printers to the side

that he uses to make
all of these props
and to form them,

and we tried to just kind of
lean into that connection point

between what the movie
was doing and what Val
was doing as a character.

And then really lean into,
again, you know,

there’s still
an innocence to this,
of Lewis is not turning evil.

It’s that Bob is having someone
appeal to his importance

in a way that no one else has
maybe ever in his life.

And you see the
kind of excitement
of what that could mean

to someone like that

and this idea
of the hint in his eyes
at that Sentry side.

I was in this helicopter.
I got that shot. It’s morning.

This was also
a very funny Easter egg of...

That’s a C.C. Rentals truck
that we painted.

When I was in film school,
there was one rental service
in New York

that would rent you a truck
to film students

who consistently ding it
and scratch it
as much as possible, um...

And when we needed a vehicle
for them to come in on,

I just thought
it would be funny

cause that is who would
rent to them on short notice
in New York.

This whole scene, I think this
is two takes of improv
in the back of that truck.

And at this point in the shoot,

they had just figured out
these characters
so well and their dynamic,

you could just let them go
and you would get
great things like that.

You know,
about Walker’s insecurity

and maybe a little hat tip
to how he felt about his,
uh, his helmet

in Falcon and Winter Soldier.

But just, yeah,
the interplay felt so nice.

This is actually out on a set.

Th-That was onstage,
and this is, again,
never any green screen.

This is out
on our 45th Street set,
with a camera mount.

Again,
just two takes of improv.

Sorry. Joanna wrote
a lot of these lines,

but just letting
these two guys go

with each other
to establish this.

...I drive. [chuckles]

I don’t get tired.

No, I mean metaphorically.

I don’t actually want to drive.

[Yelena] Are we there yet?

- Almost!
- Almost!

[inhales, exhales deeply]

Okay. Mr. Soldier,
what is secret plan, huh?

The plan?

[Alexei] Yeah.

[Schreier] Okay,
so this whole set, I mean,

is one of the craziest sets
I’ve ever seen built.

Grace built
an entire recreation
of 45th Street in New York,

three stories up,
with this lobby inside.

Some of the background
of the lobby
is extended by ILM,

but it all connects,
it all exists.

The overpasses are real.

I mean, I’ve really
never seen anything like it,

and then Chuck built this
incredible rig with silks
over the top of that street,

so that you could play it
as this consistently
cloudy day the whole time,

and then ILM
did a beautiful job
extending that set.

But again, when 60 to 70%
of what you’re looking at
is entirely in-camera,

when you extend things
in the background,

you’re giving everyone
a much, much better
chance of success.

And it was just
such a, you know...
You’re in this weird position

where shooting on location
wouldn’t make any sense,

’cause Avengers Tower
doesn’t exist in New York,

so you’d be adding that,
so it makes sense
to have the control,

especially given all the action
that we’re gonna do there.

But then to have
this level of detail,

Michael Hersey,
longtime art director,

who we worked with on Beef,
supervised this over months
of building that thing.

And then we just tried to set
as much as we could there

to make it pay off
for how much effort
went into it.

How crazy is it to think
of all the monumental fights...

[Schreier] It was really fun
when we got to this part
of the shoot.

I think we’d been
making this movie
that felt very different

um, and almost felt like
it wasn’t a Marvel movie,

and then I remember getting
to this scene and this sequence

and being in our
remodeled Avengers Tower,

and it felt like, "Okay, no,
it is a Marvel movie."

I mean, this is
a villain face-off
with a team of heroes.

Just in our context,
with a little bit
of dryness underneath,

but knowing that the movie
was gonna exist
in both of those worlds,

that it was gonna
feel different,

but also in the end,
hopefully, if it works,

aspire to live up to the legacy
of the great movies

that this studio has made.

And there was a comfort
being in this scene

and feeling
the familiarity of that.

It’s tropey for sure,

but done in our own style,
and that was always the hope

was to kind of get
to have the fun of those tropes

and what these movies can be

and then also undercut it
a little bit

and hopefully have
all of those things

live in harmony together.

And it was also just fun
to get them together
with Julia finally

and have that
interplay with her.

She was so great
with the team in this.

The Santa line, uh,
which was Joanna’s add,

and the way
Alexei plays this, uh...

or the way David plays this
is just so fun.

What?

- Where’s Mel?
- Mel?

Oh, Mel. Yeah.

Uh, Mel is having
a little loyalty issue.

But I’m just so grateful...

[Schreier] And then,
we finally get to
our big Sentry reveal,

which, you know, again,

it’s so many different places
that this character needs to go

in so little time,

and leaning into this idea

that it’s not necessarily
the most comfortable fit.

And, you know, I think
what’s so great about
having Lewis is that

he has the stature
and he can physically embody

this Golden Guardian of Good,
and at the same time,

bring a level of insecurity
underneath that.

And, God, yeah,
Florence’s face there.

I mean, obviously
the most important
part about this scene

is this idea that, you know,
if you’re with Yelena
on this journey

and you believe that
nothing really matters
at the beginning,

and then you meet this guy
who’s going through
a similar thing,

and you form some sense
of connection with him,

and then you feel
like you’ve lost him,
but you’re there to rescue him,

to see him
in this other context,

you know, this is what
drives her to the rest
of where the story is going

and her true low point,
which is to find

that person that she met
lost to her,

and you know,
this sort of fight
for his soul and his purpose

between her and Val
that they’ll play out here.

The fact that she loses it
is really what drives
the rest of the story.

Oh, no.

No, I’m not gonna hurt people.

[Schreier]
And meanwhile, of course,
we get to hear Val’s plan

and that she does want to be
in charge of everything,

you know, with this, uh--
you know, the idea that
in this world of the MCU,

you can’t really have that
without one of these heroes
at your side,

especially in this case,
the most powerful one
of all, um...

And I love the way
Alexei sort of engages
in that meta, you know.

Thinks the name is cool
and is impressed at
the same time as he wishes...

I think all of them,
at some point, wished

that they were standing
in that position.

And now, to see this guy
who they, you know,
not dismissed, I mean,

in Walker’s case, perhaps,
in a pretty negative way,

but just not imagining
that this is what he could be.

But to see him
standing opposite in this role

has personal resonance
for each of them

and thinking about
what they didn’t become.

Please, don’t do this.

[Schreier] And, again,
these lines are very delicate

with Lewis, you know,
to make clear

that he doesn’t
want to hurt them,

that if it feels like
a quick turn for the audience,

we understand
where it’s coming from,

and he really just does
wanna be important,

but it’s not that he bears them
any necessary ill will.

But, again, yeah,
that close-up is where

Yelena really realizes
that he’s lost,

and to see
that sinking feeling,

I mean, it’s just
so great on her part
in just a little close-up.

Thunderbolts?

[Schreier] And then here we go!
We finally get to see him work.

But the idea here
in this sequence was also

that he hasn’t
trained very much,

so it’s not only establishing
for the audience--

for the Thunderbolts,
what his powers are,

but also for himself to see,
"Oh, I can stop bullets,"

and become more comfortable
as the sequence goes on.

You know, and obviously,
Sentry’s power set
is limitless,

so if the sequence
went on further,
if he had more people to fight,

we could go even further,
but it felt like
we could contain it

to a level that still
fit within our movie,

where obviously
we’re stepping outside of
the fully practical thing now.

There’s more CG in this.

But we’ve been
yearning for that.

We wanna see.

This is where it becomes more
of a superhero movie,

if we’ve been
something different.

You wanna see
what The Sentry can do

that we thought
still balanced with...

This is shot with a lot
of our first unit as a oner,

with a motion control rig
and a TechnoDolly.

And then there’s CG
in between, obviously,

’cause he’s doing things
that humans can’t do,

but it is real performance
amidst all of that.

And still feels,
within that context,
like our movie,

but expanding into that more
kind of traditional
superhero territory.

This is also a shot
with a lot of design from Rico,

our board artist
who I mentioned before,

who does such great stuff
with action like this.

And you land again,
just continuing to
lock in on Yelena

and how she feels
about losing Bob,

and then playing into
this very kind of,
you know, Bucky’s moment,

where in a normal movie
you might expect...

You know, we want this
to be Bucky’s moment.

We want him to succeed here,
but really, you know,
it’s interesting.

Unlike normal fights
in normal movies,

these are kind of
overall scene arcs

where they have all wins
downstairs with the guards

and then all losses
in this sequence
to bring them to a low point.

They get nothing in on Sentry.

And that’s when
you really feel it.

It’s pretty rough

having your arm
tossed towards you

after being knocked
unconscious with it.

[Valentina] I’m so glad
you were able to catch
a glimpse before your, uh...

retirement.

[Schreier] This is gonna
sound very silly,

but there is a children’s book
called Cookie Monster
and The Cookie Tree,

um, which involves a witch
and a magic cookie tree

that she puts a spell on
so that it won’t share any
cookies with Cookie Monster,

but then it won’t share
any cookies with her

’cause it only gives cookies
to people who share.

That was her spell,
and she’s sort of
hoisted by her own petard.

And I would think about that
a lot when thinking
about Val in this moment.

I think I even gave
Julia that book.

And she laughed and said,
"You’re very strange,
you know that?"

And she’s not wrong.

Okay.

Hannah told me
this is an actual moment

where she forgot to give
Sebastian his arm back

and then had to remember it.

And we kept that in,
which was fun.

In this scene,
which Joanna wrote,

I just thought
it’s an interesting one

where I was worried about
having Yelena go this far.

I was worried that the audience
would lose touch with her
if she was this harsh.

I mean, it’s obviously
the point of the scene

is to bring your characters
to a low point

and have your protagonists,
you know--

because she feels
those bonds broken--

tear apart the team.

But how far she went,

I think I, you know--
my mistake was cautious

in how far we would let her go,
and everyone else
really spoke up for...

Joanna spoke up for,
and the actors spoke up
for the idea that it was...

Not only was it okay
to go there,

but it was important
to go to this place.

And it really added
so much to this scene.

[scoffs] See?

Slow down. Um-nichka.

Alexei,
I am not your um-nichka.

I haven’t heard from you
or seen you in a year.

[Schreier] And here we start
to delve more into that thing

that’ll become the crux
of the next scene,
of how they’re processing...

Again, you may just know it
in this movie
as Yelena’s sister,

but obviously,
if you’ve seen these films,

you know, hinting at
this sense of loss

after Natasha is gone
and how they’re processing it.

Yelena!

[Schreier] Meanwhile,
back in the tower,

not going so great.

And, again,
it’s a tricky balance,
you know.

I mean, when you have
Julia Louis-Dreyfus,

you want to
lean into this humor,

but I felt like we never
pushed it too far

to come at the expense
of the stakes
that are starting to emerge.

But again,
Lewis has such little
real estate here

to play this more
sort of, you know, manic side

of the duality
of this sense of hubris

and the way it’s frustrating
to feel limited in that.

And this is the side
Val didn’t get to see

before she put him
into this position,

because she’s so rushed
and trying to get out of
her circumstances.

But, you know, again,
Lewis is doing so much here
with so little time

to show that it’s not just
a sort of traditional

villain drunk on power,
but someone who
wanted to matter

but is also uncomfortable
with that position,

and again,
we were always trying
to get at this idea,

based on a friend of mine,
of the hubristic side

actually bringing about
the self-destructive side

and that sense of despair.

And this was something
that we really drilled in on
in this moment of the scene,

to show that hubris
but in an unstable sort of way,

which I thought
he did so beautifully.

[grunts]

You were gonna turn on me...

[Schreier] And this idea
of feeling like
everyone always abandons him,

which is something that’s true,
or doesn’t see him this way,

or is willing to
cast him aside,

which has been true
his whole life,

which he now sees in her,
which brings about
this darker side,

so that when he is
killed by Mel,

we then transfer him
to that Void side
of The Sentry character.

And this is sort of
completing Mel’s
arc of deciding,

"Okay, between the two,
I would rather not
be on the outside.

Even if there are
compromises to it,

I would rather
be closer to power."

I want a raise.

[Valentina]
Okay, fine.
Get cleanup on the body.

And tell Holt it’s finally time
to go lethal on these losers.

[Schreier]
This took a lot of
development here

of how to turn Sentry dark,
you know,

and how to kind of
do a version of creating
this character of the Void.

This is ILM’s work of kind of
drawing the shadows to him

to establish
the beginning of that.

And adding that eye flip.

[Alexei] Yelena!

[Schreier]
And this is probably...

well, one of my favorite scenes
in the movie for sure.

This is another scene
that Sonny really wrote,

paired with that scene
in Alexei’s apartment
from the beginning.

And, you know,
really trying
to push this movie

to a different corner
than you might expect

for a young woman
who’s really
going through something.

Uh...

And I think this was always
one of my favorite scenes

from the moment I read it.

I don’t think we shot it
till about eight weeks in,

and I think we had
half a day for it, um...

But you just were so excited,
knowing how good David
and Florence are together

and were gonna be.

And I remember
there actually...

Yeah, there was
a lightning storm that day.

We had to wait on stuff.

There was this tension

of just wanting
to see this scene happen.

And I think after
the first take on her,

David turned to me
and he was like,

"I mean, that’s it.
I don’t know that

you’re gonna get
any better than that."

And we did more takes,
of course,

but they were just so ready
to perform this, um,

and I don’t know,

there are just times when,
you know,

I care a lot about camerawork,

but in a scene like this,

sometimes you wanna just be
as simple as you possibly can.

And it’s just two lens sizes,
you know, one at a time,

so you’re on the eyeline
on each of them,
and you just let them go.

There’s a wide shot
to lead you into it,

but there’s no
fancy camerawork.

We’re not pushing in.

The last thing you wanna do
is get in the way

of performances like that.

There are times
to do fancy things

and there are times
to just let it go.

My first...

[Schreier]
And it’s interesting,
you edit this movie,

and you watch this stuff
over and over.

I remember the first time
I saw this in the assembly,

and, you know, I choked up
a little bit just
’cause of that performance.

And it’s hard to remember that
that’s a thing
that’s out there for you

as you edit it
over and over again.

When you see it with
an audience again
for the first time,

you can feel it in the room.

Maybe not for everyone,
but certainly for me, I think,

just, again, as someone
who appreciates great acting.

You know, to be able
to be in this movie

and with the scale
and scope of everything
that’s going on around you,

but to get to this place
that feels so small
and relatable

and how much she commits to it.

I mean, you don’t really...

This is the thing
about making these movies.

You’re on so much stuff,

and you’re doing all the action
and all these things,

but the movie only works
if this thing that you get
in half a day

with two setups,
with two actors, if it sings.

And, you know, the...

I mean, she’s actual magic.

I mean, if you ever
get a chance to work with her,
you should take it.

And David, you know,
to do that performance,

to be as big and as funny
as Alexei can be

but bring it in the way
that he does in this scene,

I mean, I’m just so in awe
of both of them.

This scene actually used to,
and I think you see it
in some of the posters--

used to end in a hug,
and the hug was beautiful.

I loved that moment.

But we actually felt
like she was arcing
a little bit too soon,

like we were letting her
learn too clearly the message
in the movie too early,

and we needed to leave room
for it to go,

so we cut around that
and had him look up here

and moved around the hug
before she can entirely process

what she’s learned here.

Little Easter egg, some posters
for bands I’ve done
music videos for on the wall:

Haim, and Francis
and the Lights,
that I was in for a bit,

and Cashmere Cat.

I think also that perfume ad
on the bus station behind it

we made Watts Perfume,
in Jon’s honor.

And now the movie
gets a little bit bigger
and we get the scope.

And this is...
Obviously, there’s
a lot of CG going on here.

ILM did such beautiful work
building New York City

and also just the design
of what the Void looks like,

which, you know,
Kevin encouraged us to make...

He asked if there was
any photographic,
in-camera way we could do it,

which there wasn’t really,
but embracing that concept,

just trying to make it
as simple as it could be,

where we did shoot Lewis
and then it is sort of...

You know, it’s not
an overall mask on him,

but it is kind of
these adjustable, like...

just allowing
a little bit of light
in certain parts

and turning the rest into
a nearly 2D silhouette.

And then the eyes
are not animated.

I mean, those come from
his actual eye movements,

and it really doesn’t work
if they stay on the whole time.

It starts to feel a little bit
like Terminator,

like they come from
the specular highlights,

you know, in his eye light
that they animated.

And then, of course,
these shadows...

Grace brought in
a ton of references for these,

a lot of, like,
the way burns spread.

We went to that.

And, again, just trying
to figure out, like,
what’s something simpler?

You know,
when you work on effects...
This is not simple.

This is incredible
CGI work from ILM.

There’s no other way
to do this.

But when it comes
to the shadows, you know,

we would get wedges--

and some of that
shadow development

happened with Framestore
and Rising Sun Pictures
as well--

of, "Here’s six ways
we could do it.
Here’s the simplest."

And we would often say,
"Actually,
start from the simplest,

and then do a wedge
of six ways
even simpler than that."

You know, that we really
didn’t want this
to feel like CG,

even if we were using
some of the best CG companies
in the world to do it.

We wanted it to have
a bit of a different texture.

This sequence...
You know what I think
is funny about this

is Kevin actually asked,

"Do we have to do
another crane falling?
We do that so much."

I mean, he kept pushing me
more than I even expected

to try to
do things differently,
and I stood up for that one.

I wanted the crane falling.
I felt like the trailers
were gonna need that scope,

and really
this entire sequence...

You know, Alexei references it
in the beginning, you know,

saving civilians
in the streets, you know,

it’s this kind of
time-honored thing.

And even if there is
a little bit of, you know,
near hokeyness to some of it,

you know, especially
when they’re lifting the slab,

it all exists because
this is a thing they can solve,

and then there’s going to be
a problem that they can’t,

so I used to talk about
how all of this money
and all of this shooting time

and all of the CG
was really only going into it

for that one moment
of the little girl
getting voided,

which we’re gonna come to
in a moment

and is maybe my favorite moment
to watch in the theater
of this film.

But, again, so much more
of this than you would think
was in-camera, like this slab.

Dan Sudick
and his special effects team
built an actual cement slab

that was on a hoist
that we filmed for this.

This shot is in-camera,
everything that
they’re lifting up.

That is an actual,
gigantically heavy slab
that they’re lifting.

And, sure, okay,
what is Ghost really gonna do?

What is Yelena gonna do?
They’re not super soldiers.

But we just struggled
to come up with an image
that would work as well

for establishing them
finally coming together
as a team

in that very classic hero way
before we undercut that.

This came from
Phil Langone boards
for this sequence,

and we were never
able to beat it.

So that’s an actual fall.
All that dust is real.

We put a little too much dust
on the thing,

and then we went with it
as a transition.

[crowd applauding]

[Schreier] And this moment
was very important,
as Kevin pointed out--

Yeah, Alexei soaking it up,
what he wanted--

of Val processing her idea
for what she’s gonna do
at the end of the film.

[child] Mom?

[Schreier]
And here we go.
Here’s our little girl.

So edging on cheese,
saving the most classic
little girl in the street,

which is all, again,
this entire sequence
is just building up

to get this moment to land,
which it didn’t in our
earliest test screenings.

We didn’t get the gasp
that we now get in theaters,

which I think really
had to fine-tune
the music with Son Lux,

of building up to
this borderline cheesy moment

before it’s undercut
and then we finally start to...

Maybe it’s also just getting
all the VFX finished

and buying into that sequence.

But now you get to see more
of that shadow spread
that ILM built.

You know, and there’s a lot of
nice texture in those shadows.

It is a very simple effect
with no flash.

It’s a one-and-a-half frame
animation from being upright
to becoming a shadow,

and anything more than that,
you started to feel
the CG creep into it,

so it really took
some confidence to feel...

It feels a little exposed
to do such a simple...

It’s almost just a cut
to them being gone.

But, you know,
it just felt like

a different way
to approach this.

And it’s nice to see
how effective that is
in theaters.

And this is one of my
favorite moments in the film.

You know, really Yelena
processing that, and maybe
that little feeling inside,

that is she drawn
to that same thing

she was drawn to
in the beginning?

Is this it for her?

You know, is she not
along for this ride
given what she’s gone through?

But also she’s had
that experience with Alexei,

and, of course,
really what’s happening is

she understands maybe
even a little bit of guilt

for having expressed
this idea to Bob
of "We’re all alone" to him

that he’s now processing
and knowing that she needs
to take a leap of faith,

and again, that same memetic,
eyes closed,
breath in and step.

And we matched that frame.

I mean, it’s not exact,
but we actually had to shoot

on a different side
of the building in Malaysia

to match the angle
that she’s stepping
into the shadow here,

so it’s meant to truly mirror
that image of her
stepping off the building

at the beginning of the film.

And now we’re back in
one of my favorite sets.

[Anya] Yelena!

[Schreier] And this is where
we really come to understand
the idea of the Void

and these loops,
’cause we haven’t looped
these things before,

and I think
we kept adding to that,

I felt like, in the edit,
as we were cutting it on set.

You would need
to do three of these

to really understand
the looping nature of this.

Something Kevin thought
was very important,
which was nice,

is that she’s
calling out to Bob
so there’s an urgency to this,

like she’s in here to find him

but then is also almost
unable to look away
from her prior shame.

And again, that wall’s
just been there the whole time,
and this is a very...

You know, again,
sometimes you feel exposed

and you’re, like,
everyone’s just gonna notice,

but I think most people don’t
until this moment

when she hits it
and you see the loop extend,

which then draws her back in,
attempting to stop this
from happening.

But of course,
the sort of rule of the Void,

you know, that we learned
through the course
of making this

is that you cannot
interfere with it.

That only through some sort of
acceptance and distance
can you get out of this loop.

As she tries to fight it,
it makes it even worse,

and the Void fights back
against her.

This is the "sentient tree"
that Sonny added,
we used to call it.

Looked a little silly on set,
but Florence really
sold that thing,

and then the little additions
in post made it work.

[speaking Russian]

[Schreier]
These kids are so good.

Uh...

Alexa plays Anya,

and of course, Violet McGraw
who played a young
Yelena Belova in Black Widow

is back to play
Young Yelena here,

and they both did
just such a great job.

Bob?

[Schreier]
These scenes, that scene
of Yelena’s childhood

and having a friend killed,

that was a Sonny addition
as well as this scene,

and going through
to the bathroom in the attic,

all the details
of that sequence

were something he really
brought to the movie

in such a beautiful way.

He really felt it was important
that this not just be
about trauma

but focusing more
on a sense of shame
and one’s own culpability

for the darkness
that one finds oneself in.

And I thought that was
such an interesting
distinction,

so that you see each of that
in these scenes, you know,

that it’s not just
a terrible memory

but one’s own culpability
within it.

Florence is just so good here
playing both sides of herself,
you know.

And this is in a very recent
dark place she felt.

Incredible VFX work here.

You know,
we didn’t do motion control
for any of this,

but just filmed
Florence with the double

and filmed both sides of it,
got it as close as we could,

and then used face replacement
and compositing

to bring those
two shots together.

And then, again, it’s just
an editing transition
of the loop.

And this is where I think
you really start
to feel the weight

of there being
no way out of here
if you try to disturb it.

This scene was a later add
and a Kevin idea

about wanting to find...

to track our heroes on
their journey into this Void
after her and showing...

It’s nice to see some of--

despite the last time
we saw them together--

Ava’s faith in Yelena’s
decision to go in

and the idea that
that would be worth following.

And of course,
Alexei in his sadness,

is grateful for any idea
that he might be
able to find her.

And here we find where
she just says, "Enough,"

and it’s a simple thing,

but it just means
she’s not gonna
fight it anymore,

and in not fighting it,
that brings her closer to Bob.

This was actually all built...

So that wall with that mirror,
we built onto the attic set.

This is all in-camera.
There’s no compositing
in those mirrors.

And these sets are built
just for that shot.

Obviously here, we’re in
the normal bathroom set.

But as we begin
this transition...

You know, after she says,
"What we talked about
in the vault,"

this is all in-camera,

where the lights go down here
and we pan her through.

And it’s just two joined sets

that brings her into the attic
and to the center of the Void

because he’s allowed her in.

And then, of course,
we establish now
that’s not there anymore.

But, again,
just very, very simple
editing tricks for this.

It felt like, in a funny way,
by doing smaller,
simpler things,

that was the way to take things
in a newer, different direction
for Marvel

and honor that
instruction from Kevin
to make it different.

And then, you know,
when you have
an actress like Florence,

when you can establish, uh,
with humor, what this is,

these interconnected
shame rooms,

but even amidst
all this darkness,

that always gets a laugh
in the theater.

Some beautiful sound work
here too from Paul Hsu.

Skywalker did the sound
for this movie
and did an incredible job.

Paul is someone I’ve known
since my first movie,
Robot & Frank,

where, you know, we tried
to design the sound
of the Void.

And we tried a lot of things
and this idea of voices
poking in from the other rooms,

which was too much
of a cacophony,

but it ended up
this very simple thing he built

where building
this infinity reverb tail
on the lines of the Void,

processing that
and then doing a detune on that

and mixing that in so
there’s this constant spooky,
detuned reverb wash

that is built on the lines
that are being said above it.

So yeah, this was
a beautiful scene
that Sonny wrote.

Then what’s happening
down below,

Joanna wrote beautifully,
this sense of...

You know, there’s so much
to establish in this moment

of Bob trying to be the hero,
which his dad alludes to,

and protect his mother.

But then the heartbreak
comes from his mother saying,

"In doing that,
you only made it worse."

And in such a few
amount of lines

to establish both sides
of that duality

of Bob’s desire for heroism
and his sense that, in fact,

that aspiration
is what brought about
the worst thing,

to have all of those things
in such a tiny scene

to establish The Sentry side
and the Void side,

I thought that was
such beautiful writing
on her part.

And this scene...

We filmed this, I think,
in the third week of filming,

and I was so excited
to have these two actors
and do this scene

and have it build
to this conversation.

But it’s one of those things

where I think all of us
would say if we were asked,

I don’t know that any of us
felt for sure that we had it
when we left set,

and it was only really
when we got in the edit

where I was able
to find those moments,

and it’s like,
"Oh, no, it was there."

But it’s a risky thing
to build a movie like this

up to a conversation
with no movement in an attic.

And just her
sense of confidence

and how nuanced and small
her performance is,

and just that moment of Lewis
being unable to hold her gaze.

And then this idea
that things are shaking

because he’s beginning
to be won over

and that he thinks
he might leave,

that’s when the Void
begins to fight him,
that it begins to wake up.

And the other side of himself
is gonna fight them
to not let them out.

And so much of this
was done practically.

There’s a bunch of
excellent CG in here
from Framestore, but this...

I’m one shot early,
but this footstool
that flies at them,

these were all
Pyrocell pieces that
Dan Sudick and his team built

that are actually
flying at them

and look like they have weight.

This is an actual
guy in the wall...

Just trying to really honor
that kind of handmade sense

of how some of these
more horror ideas were done.

And the papers that are
flying around are real,

but then, yeah,
we do have some
added CG pieces,

but again, that idea
that if you get enough
of it in-camera,

you’re putting yourself
in such a position of success.

I mean, even the way
this curtain strangles them,

that almost is
an in-camera edit,

you know, that we add
a little bit of CG to.

Again, you’re just dependent
on these incredible actors

being able to sell that
a magic evil curtain
is strangling them.

But when it’s these actors
and when they built up
to that moment,

you go with it, you buy it.

And then we get our...
[chuckles]

Maybe the strangest
triumphant save

in one of these movies
where you’re...

breaking furniture
and ripping apart a pillow.

But, you know,
within the context
of what we’ve established,

we were always a little...
wondering if people
would go with this.

But then when you get
to Bucky’s line and he says,

"It’s okay.
I have a great past
so I’m totally fine,"

that’s one of the biggest
laughs that we get
in the movie,

and you would only
get that laugh
if people were with you

on that journey
of understanding what it means
to go through this Void.

And believe me,
in another version
of this movie,

I would’ve loved to see
inside all of their Void rooms.

And there were
different drafts of the script
where we tried to do that.

But in the end, it felt like
going through Bob’s
was the most important

as far as how to
get out of here.

Okay, okay.
Just h-how do we
get out of here?

I mean, as far as I know,
it’s just endless rooms.

[Schreier] From this point on,
this was really something
that Joanna pushed for,

which was the idea
of getting back to a big bad

and finding the worst room
and finding the Void
at the heart of this thing

and needing to confront him.

And then this is
about establishing
the external stakes

if they don’t solve this.

And, you know, I thought,
at first we had kind of
ominous music over this,

but in the end
it felt more spooky
to just let it play.

That’s actually
my old commercial
production company office

in New York, Park Pictures.

They were nice enough
to let us shoot there

when I did all the New York
aerials and exteriors.

Um, and then we find ourselves
back in the Void

and back in this very
kind of Spike Jonze,
Gondry escape, uh,

through Bob’s rooms.

And here we have...
this was added later.

This is the meth chicken room,
which is definitely
on the edge.

Probably the only time
you’re gonna see "meth chicken"

on a strip board
or a schedule board at Marvel.

But I just felt...
Both for the dynamics
of them falling through...

And it felt like
in the Pixar version
of this movie,

you would have a bit of humor
before you got
to the lowest point,

even if it’s a very
dark form of humor,

and it’s atypical to say...
[chuckles] ..."I was on meth,"
in a Marvel movie.

Or to have Bucky Barnes
save the day
by punching a chicken,

but it felt like we really
wanted to push the concept
to its furthest extensions

before we got
to the lowest point.

So hopefully,
you go with us on that one.

Love that shot.
Great shot by Andrew.

And it’s nice
where you actually have...

I mean, obviously the Void,
that’s an effect
to make him a silhouette,

but by putting him
against the backlight,
it doesn’t feel as incongruous,

like it feels like it fits

with how the photography
actually would be
for a moment like that,

so that’s a really nice...

You know, between Framestore,
who did this sequence,

and Andrew and Rafi and Chuck
and all the lighting,

that’s a nice way to watch
those two things dovetail.

[Bob] Felt like a miracle.

[Schreier] And here Bob
finally defines, you know,

this idea of
what would the worst room
for someone like Bob be,

and it’s not actually,
in some ways, the trauma
of his childhood, but more...

you know, is there something
more heartbreaking

about it being the place
where he tried to be a hero,

where he tried to become
something bigger than himself

and, in his own estimation...

You know, he says it here,
"The most shameful thing of all

was thinking you could be
anything more than nothing."

And for the way that Bob feels
about himself in this moment,

this is the biggest shame,

is to imagine that
he could be anything better.

And that feels
like the lowest feeling.

No.

[Schreier] It’s quite a thing
when you ask a bunch
of the greatest actors on Earth

to be locked up against a wall
by furniture.

Requires a lot of faith
on their part
and a lot of faith on our part

to know that Framestore was
gonna come through eventually,

and even though we had
practical versions of these
things on set, for sure,

obviously they’ve
augmented them
to make them look better.

And then just to watch Lewis,
you know, have to play
both of these parts,

have to learn both sides
of this fight

and still appeal
to this sense of him
trying to protect people

and, you know,
have his darker side
laugh at himself

for wanting to do that.

[laughs]

Robert, the hero.

[Schreier] That’s a real
glass explosion that we did.

And then there’s candy glass
on their faces.

I’m stronger than you.

[Schreier] And this idea
that you’re expecting to

want to fight the Void
and beat him,

but that, in fact,
this is what the Void wants.

He’s goading Bob
into doing this.

And, again, Lewis learning
both sides of this fight
and having to perform it,

switch costumes,
do it for each of these shots,

and do both sides of it
before he becomes a silhouette

’cause even as a silhouette,
even though sometimes
this is Alec or Ben,

his wonderful stunt doubles,

you really want Lewis,
even in silhouette form,
embodying that character.

And so we really
did it both ways
as much as we possibly could.

And then here’s
the idea of the movie:
"We will always be alone."

And then this was
something we added later,
after principal photography,

this idea of the room expanding

and physically carrying
our protagonists away from him

and establishing
that sense of isolation.

That first shot
is actually done in-camera,

where we just had Lewis
on a piece of Lexan
attached to a camera car

and pulled him back.

So even though there’s a lot of
wonderful CG in this sequence,

a lot of it is practical
and in-camera.

Again, always trying
to find that balance.

And then, again,
this is this thing
you root for,

as you see a near smile
on Walker’s face.

You’re used to rooting
that you should beat up
the bad guy.

You should beat the big bad,
but in our movie,
there is no winning that way.

You know,
there’s no version of this
that ever could’ve ended

in just a punch solving it,

and you see that, in fact,
in trying to fight himself

and destroy
that side of himself,

he’s becoming the darkness
that he’s trying to avoid

and that our characters
and everyone watching
needs to learn

that there is no kind of
physical solution to this.

Bob, stop!

This is what he wants!

[Schreier] And, of course,
in a superhero movie,

maybe that feels
like an odd resolution,

you know,
or it feels too small.

We added this
sequence of Yelena
so that there was, you know,

for our protagonist
who’s been inactive
on the sidelines,

a very active role
in solving this
in a sort of action context

in which she needs to
get to him to save him

and thus save the world,

which will be plunged
into darkness

if she doesn’t succeed.

That’s actually
Heidi Moneymaker.

So to have Scarlett’s
longtime stunt double

and now stunt coordinator
performing that

felt like a real...
something really
coming full circle.

I’m here.

It will always be just us.

[Schreier] Okay, yes,
if you want to be
frustrated with us

’cause it ends in a hug,

I mean, we always said
it’s not truly a hug.

They’re trying to
pull him back from himself,

but, of course,
that’s how it functions.

And this idea of her answering,
"You’re not alone,"

this idea that she’s expressed
to him in the beginning
now being answered.

Okay, it’s a hug,
but how else
were you gonna solve this?

And it’s a hug that we try
to frame in an action context.

You know, as much as it can,
we’ve tried to externalize

these very internal ideas
of the Void and also just...

I mean, Son Lux’s score
in this moment, I think,

with these actors
and with those ideas,

we did everything we could
to have you come along
that ride with us.

And, you know,
it was always gonna end
in some version of that.

And I feel like
where Lewis got to,
I’m just so proud of him

and amazed by Florence
and all of them

for executing
such a resonant version
of that moment.

It was very fun
being in this helicopter.

That’s all I’ll say.
That’s a treat.

This was something
we also talked a lot about,

about the ending
and how it would resolve,

and there’s a reason
in the comics why Sentry
always loses his memory,

’cause you can’t really
have someone as powerful
like that in the world.

Um, and in this case...
Yes. Don’t worry.

We’re not gonna
kill a little girl.
She comes back.

That was one of the
earliest shadow tests we did,
uh, was rejoining that shadow

as a means
of getting us out of this

without having to do
tons of shots of people
waking up around New York.

But we played around
with a lot of
different versions of...

You know, there were times
when Bob did remember

but had learned this lesson
that he can’t be The Sentry
without the Void,

so he can’t be on the team,

but then he would
have to walk away

’cause they have to
go confront Val,

and that just felt sad.

So the memory loss
felt like the best way

that we could kind of
keep them together

but still be true
to the story of Sentry
that we were telling, um,

and kind of reserve
that payoff for later,
but also find this way...

You know, we had tried
a version where he didn’t
remember anything at all,

and then that felt
like you hadn’t really,
you know...

People didn’t feel like
it had honored the journey
that they had gone on enough,

so we landed on this version
where he remembers
who they are,

but he doesn’t remember
the most recent events
of what’s happened

and his episode.

Okay. Come on.

[Schreier] And in this
very simple way,
it’s like, "Yep.

We stick together from now on,"

and not in a kind of
cheesy way, but just,
you gotta...

you don’t want someone
like Bob out there.

You gotta keep
that connection alive.
You gotta keep him with you.

And then this was in
the very first draft
of the script that I read,

that everything that we did,
whatever changed,
it always ended here

with Val, you know, kind of...

This very classic thing
that Kevin and Marvel
are so good at

about, you know,
this kind of flip
and reveal that we go into.

Um, and knowing that this
whole movie was building up
to this announcement,

you know, it needs to work as
a fun twist for the audience,

but also
on a character level where...

You know, it’s interesting,
you’re not...
if you’re doing that,

then you’re not traditionally
beating your bad guy.

You’re not killing Val.
You’re not arresting her.

But that line of,
"We own you now,"
becomes very important.

We had to send
all the extras away
on set this day

when she said that,
just to make sure
no one heard about it first.

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[chuckles] Love that shot
of Lewis clapping.

The most powerful one unaware
that he’s even on the team.

[cheering, applauding continue]

And what I love is that
even amidst all of that,

and, you know,
this fun sort of positioning
for where the story will go,

there is a character moment
that we need to complete here,

and we need to push back
into that close-up
that we start the movie with.

And, again, it just came
from a moment that Florence
did instinctively on set

that we then built into
the rest of the movie,

of that same eyes closed,
breath in, look up,
but now with a smile.

Uh, this is once again
Imaginary Forces.
Um, this sequence...

We felt like when we
showed the movie, you know,
we maybe expected at first

that people would cheer on
this New Avengers thing
a little more,

and people needed
a moment with it,

and so we wanted to
kind of acknowledge
the way the real world works

and how snarky
everything is at first

and how people might not
be so certain
about this partnership,

so this was this fun sequence

that Imaginary Forces did
such a great job of painting,

of kind of starting
in that skepticism--

I love the
New York Post headline--

um, and then bringing you
around by the end of it
to some sense that,

hey, maybe this could work out,
maybe you could buy into this.

I’ll just say,
I love all these people
who made this movie.

Everyone worked so hard,
so incredibly hard

um, and cared about it
and took it seriously.

I mean Florence,
I can’t say any more.

I mean, like I said,
actual magic.

Sebastian,
to have him as part of this.
Wyatt, who’s a friend.

Olga, who was such a good sport
to show up for this.

Lewis, who, I mean,
I think really, you know,
is the find of this movie.

Geraldine,
who did such a great job.
Chris for showing up.

Wendell.
I’ve been a fan forever.

David, one of the
most committed actors
you’ll ever meet.

And Hannah,
really the glue of that group.

Julia, who’s a legend that
I just feel lucky
that I got to work with.

I just, you know,
as a director,

if you can ever
get a cast like that,

it just makes the whole job
incredibly easy.

And then, yeah,
there’s our flip.

[chuckles]

Like I said,
this is release day,

so it’s almost hard
to speak on this until

we see how that plays
out in the world,

but I think that’s a fun one
to try and an example
of how open, you know,

everyone at Marvel was
to try new ideas
on this project.

And this was a fun one
we did during additional...

We didn’t shoot any
of our post credit scenes
during principal photography.

We sort of wanted to see
where the whole thing
was gonna go

and what we would need,

but, again,
it felt like paying off

that kind of meta idea
of the Wheaties box

and Alexei’s investment in it,
but then undercutting it a bit,

uh, felt right for
where we ended our story.

And then because it’s Alexei,
and we start with Muzak
in a supermarket,

you get into kind of...

You know, he’s the kind of guy
who would love to have

a classic post credits song.

And so we get to
give that to him

and therefore give it
to our viewers.

[♪ "Nothing’s Gonna
Stop Us Now"plays]

I’ll just say that,
you know, I’m struck
when I sit in a theater.

Um... And I look at
this credit sequence,
and it’s a long one.

You know, I’ve sat through
credits before.

I like to kind of
let a movie sink in, you know,

but going through
this experience,
I know all of these people.

Um, and I know what they did
and how much...

You know, I could
talk for an hour about
each of their contributions,

and it’s just one name
on the list that’s scrolling by
that you won’t notice,

whether it’s, uh,
Onnalee and Michael,
our incredible mixers,

or Alex Levy,
our music editor, who...

so instrumental
in creating this score
with Son Lux.

You know,
the stunts on this movie
were incredible.

Every single one
of those people worked so hard.

You know, Michael Huggins,
who was our...
who did the rigging, and...

I mean, if you’re Florence Pugh
and you’re stepping
off the roof

of the second tallest
story building in the world,

you have to have a lot of faith
in that rigging.

Um, I could single out
any one of them,

and I think I’m just struck
by how many people it takes,

working so hard
and caring so much,

uh, just to make a good movie.

It’s just hard
to make a good movie,

and, you know, I guess,
if you got this far,
hopefully you feel like

this one was all right.

Um, and I am just so grateful
to all of those people

and for all of the work
that they put in,

and, really, when I look back
on this process...

something that Grace and I
would talk about,
she would say,

"You know, we’re going
to grad school.
We’re gonna learn so much."

And I think, you know,
it’s wonderful to put a movie
out in the world,

and it’s wonderful
to have it connect with people,

but also what I mainly
look back on
is the experience of making it

and how much I learned
and how much you have to
lean on this incredible team.

Um...
And I’ll never forget that.

So, um, thank you guys
for watching.

Um...

Obviously, uh... Oh, yeah,
I gotta call out
Samara Handelsman,

my assistant,
who had to put up
with so, so much.

[chuckles]

Um, what else can I say here?

’Cause I do wanna get
to the VFX houses

and explain kind of
more specifically
what they did, but, uh...

Sean, who drove me every day.

Not an easy job.
Definitely going through it.

Our wonderful second unit.

Um, really, there were days
where I would start there

and then come over
to first unit,

and it was always great
working with those guys.

Getting out to Utah, obviously.

I feel like that’s when
the movie really
opened up for me,

just feeling like
we were out there.

And Malaysia. You know,
they don’t have the entire crew
in Malaysia listed,

but it really was
a wonderful crew.

Adam in special effects,
particularly for blowing up
that building,

one take to do it.

Did such a great job.

New York.
We actually did shoot
in DC as well,

but it was such a small shoot
I don’t think they
have it listed here.

Believe it or not,
as long as these credits are,

there are even more people
that work on these movies.

All the wonderful people
at Marvel.

And of course it was great
to see Paul Jenkins
at the, uh, premiere for this

and just talk a little bit
about his view
of Robert Reynolds

and the way we treated him.

And I think he was very happy,
which was nice.

Everyone in marketing,
they did such a great job
with this movie

and really embracing
doing something different.

Okay,
our visual effects houses.

Third Floor
for all of the previs.

Digital Domain
and their previs department,

we worked on earlier,
as well as Framestore.

It’s really such
an important part
of the process.

OPSIS did a lot of work
for us in that area as well.

Then ILM... Really,
the whole New York
street sequence

and all of the voiding
and the crane falling,
all of the heavy lifting.

And Chad
and everyone over there
did just such an amazing job.

Framestore, uh, did
the vault exterior environment,

Bob’s flight, all of the stuff
in Bob’s attic
and that ending lab fight,

which, really, I mean,
we were finishing
right to the very end,

and the movie
doesn’t work without it.

They just did
such an incredible job.

Digital Domain, that was a lot
of the early vault sequence,

a lot of that fighting,
Ghost phasing,

uh, just every part
of that fight they worked on,

and that stuff came in great.

Rising Sun, a lot of
the face replacement stuff
in the film.

Base, really, just a company
that saved us on Beef as well

and just a workhorse on this.

A lot of the Bucky arms
and Void shadow growth,
things like that.

Raynault did the airplane.

Val’s drop-off,
the crater design.
Some of the penthouse stuff.

And then a lot of fill-in work
by these other houses.

I mean, it just takes
so many people doing so much.

Imaginary Forces,
who worked so incredibly hard
on that opening Marvel logo

and our ending
credits sequence,

um, which really is
such a narrative lift
for the film.

Tom Poole did such a great job
of coloring this movie
with Andrew.

Looks beautiful.

Uh, yeah.

Again, at every line,
there are people working
so incredibly hard

to make what you see here.

Doc, who also helped record
this, uh, commentary track.

And Son Lux again.

What an incredible job
they did.

And it was so fun
to go out to Abbey Road,

be in that room
and record this score.

I wasn’t there the whole time,
but just to see it
for a few days was amazing.

And special thanks
to the Merdeka,

Jon Watts, who helped me out
so much on this film,

and my friend Francis.

Atlanta Metro Studios.
Green River, Utah.
Filmed all over.

Malaysia.

A lot of these places
you see here,

a lot of this is, you know,
where the effects are finished,

not necessarily where we shot.

And I’m just...
I’m killing time here

’cause we do have
one more scene to talk about.

Okay, so this scene
got filmed maybe a month
before the movie came out.

Out in London,
on the set of Avengers,

and really it is also meant
to be really, like,
a hand-off of these characters

into the world going forward

and trying to bring back
that sense of connection
between these movies

and bringing in
the Fantastic Four.

Um, you know, for our movie,
what we always
talked about is that

because of the way
the movie ends on the street
and has an immediacy to it

and Bob’s just lost his memory,

you can’t really get into,
you know, the future of Bob
in that moment,

and so for us,
on a narrative level,

what was really important
about this scene

is knowing that, you know,

Bob is with them,
but had sort of processed
the lesson of the movie,

which is that, you know,
you can’t be The Sentry

without the other side
coming underneath,

and, you know, the real task
is to learn how to just be Bob.

And, of course, I expect,
you know, the tension
between those things

to play out in the future,
though I have no insight
into that.

I don’t know anything.

And then, of course,

if you have David Harbour,
you gotta use him.

He carries it all.

He’s dumb, litigious man,
but I am smart.

I am smart man.
I have smart solve.

Avengerz.
With a "Z,"
there is no copyright.

- No.
- [Alexei] So soft too.

[Schreier] But, yeah, it just,
you know, it looks different,

and we talked about
embracing that.

You know, it sounds different.
It has the music that feels...

You know, it’s Avengers music,
not our music.

And really seeing this team
kind of step into a new light

and, you know,
see how that feels.

And for you, Bob,
in the corner hiding,
pretending to read the book.

[Schreier] And this is, yeah.

You just get to see
that Bob is there with them,

and for our movie, you know,
if this has any
narrative import on it,

that was the most
important thing for us
about this scene.

- Get a satellite image.
- And fire up--

And fire...
I was gonna say that.

[Schreier] And, yeah,
just a really interesting day
to be out there

when they were filming this,

and they were filming
some stuff for Fantastic Four

on an adjoining stage
in London,
and just seeing that whole...

You know, something Lou
was always excited about
for Marvel

was the idea of, you know,
having a lot where all
these things were getting made

and getting to go around
and feeling the connectedness
between them,

and it really felt like
I was there on that day

where, in theory,
we were finishing our movie
and starting another,

and another Marvel movie
was being made, you know,
at a stage next door.

And it was just a really,
really nice day.

[Alexei] Extradimensional?
What does that mean?

[Walker] It’s a...
It’s a cool ship.

[Schreier] And there we go.
It is very fun to watch
people applaud for this.

And there we go.
The New Avengers,
not the Thunderbolts*. And Bob.

Thank you guys so much
for watching,
and sorry it was just me,

but we got through it.