Why Thanos was decapitated after just 15 minutes of 'Avengers: Endgame'

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, after Thanos had defeated the Avengers and killed half of the universe too, most people expected the super-villain to be even more formidable in its follow-up.

However, just 15 minutes into Avengers: Endgame it was revealed that Thanos had become incapacitated after using the Infinity Gauntlet.

Then he was easily located by Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Thor, Natasha Romanoff, and James Rhodes on a distant planet, before literally being decapitated by the Prince Of Asgard.

Infinity War and Endgame’s co-writer Stephen McFeely, who scribed the blockbuster with Christopher Markus, has now spoken to Indiewire about the decision to kill off Thanos so early on in the film.

“The idea of killing your villain 15 minutes into the movie came out of banging our heads against the wall for weeks and weeks. Because how can you fight a villain who is truly unstoppable. So what would it mean if you did kill him? What if he let you kill him? It allowed you to deal with their feeling of loss.”

What made the decision to kill Thanos even more remarkable was that after we watched him die, Avengers: Endgame then moved forward 5 years into the future to show that even after killing the heinous mass-murderer the living Avengers were still over-come with grief and struggling to exist in post-Snap world.

Read more: Kevin Feige reckons one Avenger could have defeated Thanos solo

As a result, Endgame unfolded with much more weight and poignancy than its predecessors, something that critics and audiences alike enjoyed, as it scored 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and went on to become the highest grossing movie of all time.