Avengers Infinity War spoilers: Writers reveal why TWO major heroes had little screentime

WARNING: major spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War lie ahead.

With such a huge cast of Marvel heroes on board, it was obvious that not everybody would get big chunks of airtime.

But critics have called Chris Evans’s Steve Rogers and Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff especially “underused”.

In a new interview, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have explained why they felt a little in the background – and implied they will have more to do in Avengers 4, which has already been filmed and will release in 2019.

Markus told The Hollywood Reporter: “Some of the people, when you weigh up who you are seeing, seem to take a little bit of a back seat in this one.

“When we did crack them, what we realised was they had far more potential in the movie coming next year, just in terms of how their character would be tested by the story.

“I’m not telling you what the story is. I will say there is less Steve Rogers and Natasha than you might expect in this movie [Infinity War]. Because they are such hard-bitten people, when a threat comes, they stand there and they take the threat. They don’t crack. They don’t whimper. They don’t start talking about all their failed opportunities.

“So, there isn’t that much to explore, especially when you don’t have a lot of time. But there’s a lot later.”

McFeely added: “We cracked them both [Infinity War and Avengers 4] together, so we had to give ourselves permission to say that some people are going to get more in the next movie.”

Indeed, at the end of the film, Natasha and Steve are among the very few heroes who are even still alive – after many others fell victim to Thanos wiping out 50% of the MCU with the Infinity Stones.

Several theories are already running abound as to how the apparently deceased can come back – which surely they must do, given that Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther are all set for sequels.