And you thought The Avengers: Age of Ultron was big. This morning, Marvel, IMAX and Joe and Anthony Russo revealed that the studio’s two-part The Avengers: Infinity War will be shot "in their entirety" using IMAX cameras, a first for the film industry.
According to a release, the Russos will use ARRI’s next generation 2D digital camera to capture the entire saga in IMAX. The directors are going to experiment with the technology for the action scenes in Captain America: Civil War, which is currently filming in Atlanta. That sequel will reach theaters on May 6, 2016. In planning for the size and scope of the next Avengers movies, Joe and Anthony Russo stated:
The intent with the Infinity War films is to bring 10 years of accumulative storytelling to an incredible climax. We felt that the best way to exploit the scale and scope required to close out the final chapter of these three phases, was to be the first films shot entirely on the IMAX/ARRI Digital camera."
This next-generation 2D digital camera was developed to assist directors transitioning to the IMAX format, helping bridge to IMAX’s high-resolution capture technologies. IMAX has said that its collaboration with ARRI on the revolutionary cameras will help filmmakers like the Russos "achieve the highest level of digital image capture for playback on IMAX's xenon and new laser projection systems." The next step, of course, is getting local IMAX theaters to upgrade their projection systems to accommodate this step in filmmaking technology. Perhaps by announcing their intent now, Marvel is giving theaters enough time to upgrade – as The Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 doesn’t open until May 2018.
Joe and Anthony Russo, in the meantime, need to focus on Captain America: Civil War, because that’s the next step in the ongoing Marvel narrative. That movie plans to pit Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) against fellow Avenger Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in a sequel that will continue to build toward the first Infinity War story. In between, though, we also will get a third Thor movie, a second Guardians of the Galaxy movie, a Spider-Man movie, and a Doctor Strange movie.
Beyond the visuals, what will the story be in the Russos’ Infinity War? We’re speculating, but so far, the MCU has been building to the arrival of Thanos (played by Josh Brolin), a super-powered being shown in The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy who will collect a series of Infinity Stones on an Infinity Gauntlet that we assume will create massive problems for the Avengers. More pieces will snap into place during Phase Three, but at the very least, we know that the two Infinity War movies will LOOK big.
