A book about the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe reveals why certain characters survive the events of Avengers: Infinity War.

A behind-the-scenes look at Avengers: Infinity War reveals how Marvel executives decided which MCU characters lived or died after the Thanos snap.

The MCU’s Infinity Saga is arguably one of cinema history’s most notable achievements. Before Avengers: Endgame, few other franchises have successfully developed an overarching narrative across a series of standalone yet interconnected films. And while Endgame served as the bookend to a satisfying saga of 23 movies, many still consider the onscreen deaths in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War as the defining moment in the series. Fans also suspected that the deaths of fan-favorite superheroes in that film were not random but predetermined, something that’s recently confirmed in MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios via /Film.

Authored by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards, the MCU insider book revealed how Marvel Studios’ executives decided the MCU superheroes’ fate in Infinity War. That film was the culmination of a story arc adapted from the Infinity Gauntlet comics series, which also saw Thanos acquiring and wielding the six Infinity stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe. According to MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, studio heads Kevin Feige, Trinh Tran, and Anthony and Joe Russo met with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFreely to hash out which characters lived and died in Infinity War.

Drafting Infinity War’s Hit List

The group met in a conference room and played a game of “Who Lives and Who Dies,” using a stack of cards representing all MCU characters slated to appear in the film. Feige said the “most heartbreaking deaths” were first on the list: T’Challa, Bucky Barnes, and Peter Parker. The book also revealed that actors’ salaries and contract statuses factored into the draft pick; the backs of character cards depicted their corresponding actors’ salaries on a range of one to five dollar signs, along with a note indicating if they were still under contract or up for a new deal. The group sidelined actors whose contracts were up, as they did not want to rehire them just to kill off their characters in the film.

As many fans suspected, the filmmakers opted to keep the original six Avengers alive so they could complete their hero arcs as frontrunners in Endgame. They then handpicked other characters to round out the ensemble. “If people are joking, Nebula can come in and just kill the laughs, which is very fun to do,” Markus explained. “If people are very serious, Rocket can come in and make fun of them.” The resulting lineup of survivors in Endgame honored the legacy characters who also passed the torch to a new generation of Avengers.

Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame are streaming on Disney+.