Avengers: Endgame is one of the most important movies in the history of the MCU. It marks the culmination of the Infinity Saga that began ever since we got our first look at the Avengers. Each of the projects before laid the foundation over which Avengers: Endgame rests in order to finish the larger narrative. This required for the movie to actually be perfect in order give justify each and every project that we had since before it. The release of the MCU companion book, The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe allowed us to gain insight into the behind-the-scenes of the movie. There are a lot of fascinating and interesting narratives that belong to the record-breaking movie. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting and surprising MCU secrets that have been revealed about the making of Avengers: Endgame.
Surprising MCU Secrets
Thanos’ Opening Sequence
Thanos became a point of discussion after the events of Infinity War based on the power levels he had now reached. The Russo brothers along with Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely started wondering about how to bring the Mad Titan back. Bringing him back would definitely require for the surviving Avengers to have a plot armor but that was something they wanted to avoid. It was actually executive producer Trinh Tran who broke this deadlock by stating, “God, I really wish we could just kill him.” Thus, the writers decided that Thanos would willingly die after having completed his mission. This actually falls in the way the character has been brought up.
Title Change During Pre-Production
The initial plans for the culmination of the Infinity Saga involved a single narrative that would be a larger project. Consequently, the release dates for Infinity War Part I and Part II were announced. Thus the title for Endgame was supposed to be Infinity War Part II, but the director duo realized that they required two different projects in order to finish this narrative. So they decided that the first movie will be about Thanos and it will go according to him. The second movie will feature a narrative that will ring parallels to the concept of the original Avengers movies. This led to the next title for the movie ending up being Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet which was later changed to Avengers: Endgame.
Natalie Portman Did Not Film A Scene For The Movie
Natalie Portman’s character of Jane Foster had randomly disappeared from the MCU with hints about a possible break-up between her and Thor. The Endgame sequence saw her as Thor and Rocket went to retrieve the Infinity Stone back in time during the events of Thor: The Dark World. But the actress was actually not even present on the set for the movie. This is surprising considering the amount of talent that the movie went for to give major elements of the narrative. According to a major revelation, her character was destined to become Mighty Thor later in the MCU. We will actually get to see this unfold in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder.
“I Love You 3000”
One of the most touching moments from the movie is when Stark’s daughter says this line to him. It would become so important that fans would use it worldwide to express their love for Iron Man. There is a very interesting story behind this line that was revealed in one of the teasers for the book itself. Throughout the movie, we would see Morgan saying this line to him and it was something Downey’s real daughter said to him when she was a young child. The line made it into the movie when Downey shared this story with the Russo’s who actually found it adorable.
“I Am Iron Man”
The most impactful scene where Stark makes his final move was supposed to be absolutely silent. But the final movie saw him uttering the words that led to the iconic line “I am Iron Man” which gave an impactful ending for the Infinity Saga. Editor Jeff Ford stated during a particular meeting, “Why don’t we just go full circle with it and say I am Iron Man.” This new scene was actually filmed in January 2019, which is actually just a few months before the release of the film. In a major twist of events, the scene was filmed at Raleigh Studios due to a lack of availability of sound stage. This is actually adjacent to the stage where Downy Jr. had auditioned for the role of Iron Man more than a decade prior.
Tony Meets His Daughter
The saddest part of the movie was the end of the arc of Iron Man with his sacrifice in the end by having the final snap. But there was a particular sequence in the initial plans that would have taken things to a larger level. A deleted scene from the movie saw Katherine Langford as Tony’s daughter meeting him but it was discarded due to its jarring nature. The scene would have seen Tony enter a metaphysical waystation, similar to Thanos in Infinity War, where he would meet the adult version of his daughter. But the director duo felt that introducing a whole new character at this point could have affected Tony Stark’s ending. The scene can be seen as a bonus deleted scene on the Disney+ streaming platform.
Stark’s Snack Scenes
It was Robert Downey Jr. himself who masterfully brought in the snacks to the narrative of his character. Apparently, Downey would sneak food from the catering department onto the set and then he would bring this randomly up in the scene. He would actually end up using his character’s hunger as a means of using the food as a proper. This led to some of the most interesting moments in the movie and thus led to some exciting improvised sequences. One of these involves, Stark handing food to his Avenger colleagues as they are discussing how to get the Infinity Stones.
RDJ Was The Only Actor To Have Received The Full Script For Endgame
There were numerous cases of plot leaks and there was a lot of hype regarding this project. But Marvel decided to take their best measures and they made multiple versions of the script in order to prevent the leak. None of the cast members actually got the complete script except for Robert Downey Jr. This actually makes sense considering there is a lot depending on his character in the movie. Anthony Russo stated:
We did pitch Robert his arc because he kicked off the entire MCU. The Tony Stark arc is the longest and perhaps fullest in the MCU. Once we decided we wanted this kind of ending for the character, we certainly wanted to make sure Robert was comfortable with it, just because of his enormous contribution to the MCU. We did pitch it out.
Smart Hulk Was Supposed To Appear In Infinity War
According to another major revelation, Smart Hulk was supposed to appear in Infinity War during the Wakanda sequence. This was actually the greatest hour of need for the character and we ended up seeing him failing to become Hulk. The fight with Cull Obsidian was actually supposed to see Banner and Hulk reach a heat-of-the-moment compromise resulting in Smart Hulk. This was even shot accordingly but Feige said that it would have looked like a weird victory amongst all the chaos going on during that scene. So the Marvel Studios VFX team removed the Smart Hulk narrative from here and the character remained Bruce Banner struggling to become Hulk.
Final Battle Sequence For The Movie
Battle sequences could be some of the most expensive and large things in any movie. The Endgame battle sequence was one of the largest events in the narrative that fans could have expected to see from the franchise. This featured a lot of characters with smaller narratives being explored at the same time. According to details, a whopping 1,400 visual effect artists were required to create the scene from multiple studios. The development of the scene was given a time frame of merely 16 weeks. This is quite surprising considering the movie and its predecessor required a total of three years to film and edit. But fans will remember this as one of the biggest moments that they could have gotten from the franchise.
So these were Endgame’s most surprising MCU secrets. Which of them did you find the most interesting? Let us know in the comments.
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