How 'Avengers: Infinity War' Is Like 'Nashville' And 'Game Of Thrones'

When looking at a mega-budget blockbuster like Avengers: Infinity War, it's not much of a stretch to put it in the same relative ballpark as HBO's super expensive fantasy series Game of Thrones. But while that comparison seems somewhat appropriate in terms of scale, I wouldn't necessarily think Infinity War has anything in common with director Robert Altman's 1975 drama Nashville.

But I would be wrong about that. Writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus explained this Infinity War Game of Thrones Nashville comparison during our set visit, and teased the film's darker tone in the process.

What about bringing in the cosmic universe? That seems to be something we're all very curious about. How are the Guardians [of the Galaxy] coming in?Stephen McFeely: That's part of the "strange alchemy," right? One of the reasons that first Avengers movie was so popular and so exciting is, you were taking four franchises and [claps] smashing them into each other. Hopefully, we have the same kind of magic here, where we bring this completely different set of characters and smash them into varying groups of our characters. Another thing to think about, one of the challenges we've had is, how do you make sure this is not 25 people moving from one scene to one scene to one scene? So we talk, being a little facetious about it, but we talk about how it's like Nashville, right? So you've got four or five different stories weaved together and then come together and then break apart. So, you get all these different pairings and groupings of four and five and six [characters].Christopher Markus: And even now, not unlike something like Game of Thrones, where you have this vast canvas with characters – you've been watching this guy over here molesting this girl over here in the East for years and only now does it have that feeling of massive plates shifting and finally bringing these characters near each other.Are you saying this movie is going to be on par with Daenerys finally meeting Jon Snow? [laughter]Christopher Markus: I'm absolutely telling you that. Yes!Stephen McFeely: It's going to blow that away.

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Game of Thrones spent years leading viewers toward a meeting between two of its biggest characters, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has done the same thing with Thanos. It's become commonplace for people to compare the construction and execution of Marvel's interconnected cinematic worlds to the way a TV show's writers' room works, but this is one of the most clear-cut parallels I've seen from the people who actually write these movies.

While we're pretty certain a few friendly faces aren't going to survive the events of this movie, Christopher Markus gives us a hint of the tone the film will reach by its end – and it doesn't sound good for our heroes:

Christopher Markus: I mean the big thing about all of these movies, but these two. You know, all the way along the line we wanted to give people choices and make them continue to have to sacrifice this decision for this decision and not just have it be like, "I have no choice in this matter." Aliens attack New York City, what are you gonna do, not fight them? No, you have to. So not criticizing that, but in order to sustain this long of an epic, to keep the waters a little muddy, to keep them going like, "Interesting, he did that. I might not have done that." And to do that for everybody, heroes and villains alike, until you get to the end and you go, "Huh, shouldn't have done that."

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These guys seem to be saying all of the right things. Giving the characters personal, complicated reasons behind the decisions they make does indeed sound more satisfying than "we have to fight because we have no choice." But how much of a choice will any Avenger really have when Thanos shows up? What are they going to do – not fight him? We'll have to see if there's a significant difference in character motivations this time around, and we'll find out when Avengers: Infinity War blasts into theaters on April 27, 2018.