This puzzle is all about “The Four Chrises” and their movies.
Identify the movie clips, then figure out which Chris appears in each movie:
| Movie | Evans | Hemsworth | Pine | Pratt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avengers: Infinity War | x | x | x | |
| Wonder Woman | x | |||
| Doctor Strange | x | |||
| Star Trek: Into Darkness | x | x | ||
| Thor | x | |||
| This Means War | x | |||
| TMNT | x | |||
| Not Another Teen Movie | x | |||
| Push | x | |||
| Delivery Man | x | |||
| The Finest Hours | x | |||
| Street Kings | x | |||
| Bad Times at the El Royale | x | |||
| What’s Your Number? | x | x | ||
| Take Me Home Tonight | x | |||
| Carriers | x | |||
| Deep in the Valley | x | |||
| Stretch | x |
These movies are sorted by domestic box office. Why that instead of chronological or alphabetical? Chiefly, so that when solvers look up filmographies on IMDB, they’ll still have a little more research to do in order to identify the clips. This order also has a side effect of putting popular clips in solvers’ hands first. (Also, there are some really terrible movies on the list, sorry, but there were some constraints in place to make the wordplay in the next step a little more interesting.)
Each Chris’s movies will form the wordlists for one of the four criss cross grids at the top of the page. Here are the wordlists:
| Evans | Hemsworth | Pine | Pratt |
|---|---|---|---|
| NOT | AT | THE | IN |
| WAR | EL | WAR | ME |
| PUSH | BAD | INTO | MAN |
| TEEN | THE | STAR | THE |
| TMNT | WAR | THIS | WAR |
| YOUR | INTO | TREK | DEEP |
| KINGS | STAR | HOURS | HOME |
| MOVIE | THOR | MEANS | TAKE |
| WHATS | TREK | WOMAN | YOUR |
| NUMBER | TIMES | FINEST | WHATS |
| STREET | DOCTOR | WONDER | NUMBER |
| ANOTHER | ROYALE | STRETCH | VALLEY |
| AVENGERS | STRANGE | CARRIERS | TONIGHT |
| INFINITY | AVENGERS | DARKNESS | AVENGERS |
| DARKNESS | DELIVERY | ||
| INFINITY | INFINITY |
Note that Evans and Pine have the same word count and word lengths, as do Hemsworth and Pratt. This makes it a little tougher to figure out whose grid is whose, but, from left to right, top to bottom, it’s Hemsworth, Pratt, Pine, and Evans. The criss cross can be filled out like this:
| A | T | W | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| H | A | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| D | O | C | T | O | R | |||||||||||||||||||||
| S | T | A | R | I | N | D | ||||||||||||||||||||
| T | R | N | E | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| T | R | E | K | F | T | A | K | E | ||||||||||||||||||
| A | N | I | V | P | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| N | E | L | N | U | M | B | E | R | ||||||||||||||||||
| B | I | G | S | V | I | A | N | |||||||||||||||||||
| A | V | E | N | G | E | R | S | A | M | T | O | N | I | G | H | T | ||||||||||
| D | F | D | E | L | I | V | E | R | Y | E | ||||||||||||||||
| I | N | T | O | T | L | W | R | |||||||||||||||||||
| N | H | H | O | M | E | W | H | A | T | S | ||||||||||||||||
| T | I | M | E | S | E | Y | O | U | R | R | ||||||||||||||||
| T | H | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| R | O | Y | A | L | E | O | M | W | A | R | ||||||||||||||||
| U | O | V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| C | R | V | K | A | N | O | T | H | E | R | ||||||||||||||||
| M | E | A | N | S | I | N | F | I | N | I | T | Y | U | M | N | |||||||||||
| R | O | E | N | O | M | N | G | |||||||||||||||||||
| W | A | R | W | H | A | T | S | G | U | B | T | E | E | N | ||||||||||||
| F | I | S | T | R | E | E | T | R | ||||||||||||||||||
| I | W | O | N | D | E | R | R | P | U | S | H | |||||||||||||||
| I | N | T | O | R | T | T | ||||||||||||||||||||
| E | M | S | T | R | E | T | C | H | ||||||||||||||||||
| S | T | A | R | E | H | I | ||||||||||||||||||||
| T | N | D | A | R | K | N | E | S | S |
Within each grid, left-to-right and top-to-bottom, take the highlighted squares. They spell the answer BEHIND THE SCENES.