How were the main characters that were affected at the end of Infinity War chosen?

Question

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, we see numerous super heroes

vanish since Thanos was able to assemble all of the Infinity Stones and do as he wished, making 50% of the entire population of the universe disappear.

I've done a bit of digging, and I can't find out if anyone has asked/researched how the superheroes that were in the film were selected to be part of

the vanished,

specifically, by the writers and directors of the film.

I'm curious because a small part of my inner-nerd really hopes that the directors rolled a dice, or used some other form of random picker since supposedly that's exactly what Thanos did.

To be clear, this is not a request for an in-universe explanation. How were the specific heroes and other main characters chosen by the makers of this film?

Answer 1

The choice to get rid of certain characters was based on the story and each character's journey in the MCU so far, as explained by Anthony Russo.

"Joe and I can't go into too much detail because we're not gonna talk about where the story goes from here," Anthony Russo says. "All of our choices are based on story. It's based upon the road that these characters have traveled, in not only this movie, but throughout the entire MCU up to this point because, again, these movies are the culmination. So all we can say is that they are very focused story choices. That's our motivation for everything. And, again, that's why we love Marvel so much is they never let the tail wag the dog. The creative choices always lead the process and then they figure out how to pull off the miracle of making it work on a business level."

_{Comic Book, How the 'Avengers: Infinity War' Directors Picked Which Characters Died}