'Avengers: Endgame' directors were 'shocked' at reaction to 'Infinity War' ending

Joe and Anthony Russo may be among the very few people who weren't surprised by the ending of Avengers: Infinity War -- since, you know, they directed the damn thing.

But they were caught off guard by the way all of us reacted to their film.

"We were shocked that people responded as dramatically as they did," Joe told Mashable at a recent press day in Los Angeles. "We knew that it was going to be a risible ending. We just didn't know that it was going to cause so much emotional trauma for people."

Which may be hard to believe -- what did they think was going to happen after they dusted Spider-Man, Black Panther, Groot, Bucky, etc. in one fell swoop?

But while the Russos knew the Infinity War ending was a sad one, they couldn't have known exactly how the fans would take it.

"I think it's hard to predict, when you make subversive choices, what kind of impact they're going to have," Joe mused. "Because they become part of the communal cultural conversation, and you never know what the drivers for that conversation are going to be."

All that said, the filmmakers, who are back to complete the saga with Avengers: Endgame, say they felt confident about that shocking Infinity War finale -- because, Joe says, "What's the point of making the movie if you're not going to make strong choices with the narrative?"

Plus, he points out, Marvel has been trending this way since their first film for the studio, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

"I think every movie that we've made with Marvel has gotten increasingly subversive," he said. "I think that elevator scene in Winter Soldier [which the Russos directed] can be looked at as a turning point for the Marvel universe. It’s when everything started turning to shades of gray, and where the good guys became the villains."

Their next Marvel project, Captain America: Civil War, saw the heroes get "divorced," and the one after that, Infinity War, killed off 50% of our faves.

"We've been making deconstructionist choices all along, and those are what excite us, and that's why we continue to make the movies," he said.