LOS ANGELES – This week Marvel Studios announced that, to shorten running length, Avengers: Infinity War’s credits will just list Hollywood actors that don’t appear onscreen.
As Marvel Studios prepares to release the third film in their tent-pole Avengers franchise the company has carefully guarded spoilers regarding the most ambitious superhero movie of all time.
“The final cut ran 617 minutes, which is obviously a problem,” said Marvel executive Marion Bradshaw. “I mean, we’re not DC, we know when a movie is too long.” Upon further examination, it was discovered that 68% of the total running time consisted of a credits crawl that included almost every actor in Hollywood.
“It was weird,” said Bradshaw. “Actors I didn’t even think had agents anymore show up in this movie. Gilbert Gottfried plays the voice of an infinity gem, Brett Butler appears as Grace Kelly from Grace Under Fire, and Jason Alexander has a cameo as one of Ant Man’s ants… Come to think of it, Ant Man’s ants account for most of the supporting cast. Mostly actors from The Sandlot and Tommy Boy.”
Other actors to appear include Hulk Hogan playing an oak tree, a digital recreation of deceased actor Fatty Arbuckle as a steel girder, and of course, Stan Lee as “some asshole who says something stupid.”
Bradshaw considered solutions such as simultaneously displaying credits along the bottom third of the screen for the duration of the film, but focus groups reportedly found this “distracting”. Finally, the decision was made to simply display the web address for IMDb.com with the caveat: “All of the actors on that website, except for the following three names.”
At press time, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Elizabeth Berkley, and Flea were unavailable for comment, but Bradshaw assures that “I promise you we tried to get them.”
CORRECTION: Upon closer examination of the post-credits easter egg scene, it was discovered that Flea does appear briefly as Howard the Duck’s cigar.
