The movie ending that made Jack Black furious: “No one’s going to go see this”
It’s tough to imagine Jack Black ever being furious. Sure, the manic funnyman has played anger on-screen before, but it’s usually an over-the-top, cartoonish rage designed to make audiences laugh. He’s never shown real anger while promoting his films in interviews or at events—if anything, those moments only make him more exuberant and larger than life. However, away from the cameras, Black gets angry just like everyone else—and he once admitted that the ending of one particular movie made him pretty irate.
In 2018, Black was promoting The House With a Clock in Its Walls, a spooky kids mystery movie he made with director Eli Roth and co-star Cate Blanchett. The film was based on a series of books by John Bellairs, and when Nerdist asked Black if there were any plans for sequels, he admitted that he’d only signed up for one movie. However, the star acknowledged that he hoped he’d get to play eccentric warlock Jonathan Barnavelt again, mostly because he was intrigued by the idea of a sequel.
After all, Black claimed he’d never made a sequel before – until he remembered he’s the lead in one of the most successful animated franchises ever. “The hope is always that they’ll come begging for more,” Black mused. “But, you know, you let the chips fall where they may. I’ve never done a sequel. Oh, wait! Kung Fu Panda 1, 2, 3. OK, never mind. Wrong! I was wrong.”
Forgetting about playing the world’s most beloved martial arts panda so many times must have sparked Black’s imagination, though. It prompted him to remember a recent sequel that had aggravated him. The School of Rock star related a harrowing tale of going to see Avengers: Infinity War, safe in the knowledge that the film would be the final part of Marvel’s ‘Infinity Saga’. He was preparing himself to see the vast, sprawling story of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and their superheroic pals’ spectacular battle with Thanos come to a satisfying end – but was met with a cliffhanger instead.
“Sons of bitches!” Black raged. “Man, they always gotta do it. I thought that Avengers was kind of a cheat.”
He explained: “I went in there thinking here comes the grand finale, and then at the end, you were like, ‘What the…?’ I was angry. I’m not going to say livid, but I was feeling like, ‘You know what? This is going to backfire. No one’s going to go see this movie’.”
Much to Black’s chagrin, though, it felt like everyone in the world saw Avengers: Infinity War. He chuckled, “And then, of course, it made $2 billion, so what the hell do I know?”
Perhaps most of these eager MCU fanatics knew that Infinity War was merely the first half of a two-part finale and that Avengers: Endgame would follow a year later. Equally, maybe they were too busy being utterly shocked by half the world being dusted out of existence with a snap of Thanos’ big purple fingers to feel shortchanged by the story’s lack of a proper ending.
Either way, one thing is for sure: once Black got done feeling furious, he couldn’t help being caught up in the excitement for Endgame. When MCU star Karen Gillan appeared on Black’s YouTube channel, Jablinski Games, he tried to pump her for information on the grand finale, admitting, “At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, I was so mad. Hitler wins, evil destroys, the end. Now I’m frothing at the mouth for the next instalment.”
