Only Two Endgame Scenes Actually Featured The Whole Cast

Avengers: Endgame will go down in cinematic history as one of the most ambitious and enormous movies of all time, but you might not realize just how huge this movie was until you realize that the cast could barely even all fit onscreen at the same time.

As the capper to Marvel's Infinity Saga, which featured ginormous crossover events from Captain America: Civil War to Endgame's immediate predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame featured a ridiculously huge cast — and as it turns out, only two scenes in the three-hour film featured that cast in its entirety, according to SlashFilm.

In an all-encompassing interview about the film's final battle sequence with Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, executive producer Trinh Tran, editor Jeff Ford, and more, the minds behind the monster hit flick revealed that the entire cast barely appeared on screen together.

"I didn't think it was possible [to feature them all in one scene]," said Tran. "Here's the thing: we had an amazing crew. Our line producer was amazing and able to logistically make it happen and [get] everybody there. Scheduling was pretty difficult, because obviously [the cast] had other projects that they were working on. If you really look at it, there are certain scenes where we would have a double for the back of [somebody's] head because we couldn't get so-and-so on that set on that particular day."

The producer went on to say, "There are two instances where we actually did get everybody. That's the wedding scene — you know what I'm talking about, and we, [to] this day, are still calling [Tony Stark's funeral] the wedding scene — that's... one shot with everybody there. That was spectacular. And then [the] second one was when all the heroes portaled in. It was such an incredible feeling to stand there and watch every single one of them in their hero costumes walking out of that."

If you break down Tran's comments, you'll realize that the first time you can catch the entire cast onscreen is during one of the battle's most pivotal moments; after most of said heroes were dusted in Thanos' (Josh Brolin) fateful snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, the remaining heroes spent most of Endgame trying to figure out how to bring them back, and finally, during the battle, the fallen Avengers return to the realm of the living thanks to Bruce Banner's (Mark Ruffalo) own snap while wearing the Stark-designed Infinity Gauntlet 2.0.

As for the second appearance, that comes during the film's emotional climax, after Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), in his final act as Iron Man, snaps back at Thanos with his gauntlet and decimates the villain and his army while sacrificing himself. During Stark's funeral, the camera slowly pans over the solemn faces of the entire cast, marking the second and final time that everyone appears together.

Endgame was one of two films to mark the end of Marvel's enormous Phase 3 (officially, the final film of the phase was actually Spider-Man: Far From Home, which was released shortly after Endgame), and aside from its staggeringly large cast, it hit plenty of other milestones after its April 27, 2019 release.

Endgame made a ton of money right out of the gate; on its opening weekend alone, the film raked in an astonishing $1.2 billion, and even as it remained at the top of the box office pack, Marvel Studios and parent company Disney devised ways for the film to rake in even more big bucks. On June 28, 2019, Endgame was re-released with a scant few minutes of new footage — and while some cynical observers bemoaned the obvious effort to unseat then-box office champ Avatar, the ploy helped propel Endgame to unprecedented box office heights. The movie completed its run with a $2.79 billion dollar worldwide box office gross, barely edging out James Cameron's 2009 sci-fi epic to become the highest-grossing film in history, unadjusted for inflation.

Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe officially kicked off in 2008 with Iron Man, the franchise has irreversibly changed and ultimately redefined the superhero genre; the scope of Marvel's shared universe has been oft-imitated in the last decade or so, but no other franchise has come close to the cohesion and synergy of the MCU. 

As the highest grossing franchise in film history by about six miles, Mighty Marvel is home to a ridiculous number of the Hollywood's most talented actors — and though they might pop up in each others' films from time to time, Endgame illustrated that even given three hours to make it happen, it can be extraordinarily tough to get them all in the same movie, let alone the same shot.