Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.

 

"I love you, three thousand."

It may go down as one of the most memorable lines ever spoken in a Marvel movie. It all starts out innocently enough -- five years have past since the events of Avengers: Infinity War, and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has done pretty well for himself. He's married to Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), they live in a nice cabin with scenic views and they have a young daughter named Morgan. As families tend to have, the Starks add a little extra cute to their "I love yous," and we first learn about that when Tony tells his daughter Morgan, "I love you, three thousand.

The weight of this line isn't truly felt until later on in the film, when Tony repeats the line in a message he sends to his loved ones following him sacrificing his life to save everyone else. It's at that moment the line takes on a life of its own, and when Fandango spoke exclusively to Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, we learned that line did not, in fact, come from them.

Instead, it came directly from inside Downey Jr.'s own home.

"Well, as much as we'd like to take credit for what is inevitably going to be one of the most memorable lines in MCU history, that is something that Robert and his children actually say to each other," Markus revealed. "He brought it from real life onto the set."

McFeely added that in the script, the line was supposed to read, "Love you tons. Love you tons." But it was Downey Jr. who decided to make it even more personal by bringing a message of love from his own family to his extended Marvel family -- and, in turn, an extended family of millions of moviegoers around the world, who are now quoting the line back as a message of their thanks and love for everything the Marvel Cinematic Universe has given them over the last decade.

 

 

 

We'll have much more with Markus and McFeely this week, as the duo answer many of your most burning Avengers: Endgame questions.