As if Avengers: Endgame wasn’t already emotional enough, it’s been revealed that Marvel boss Kevin Feige originally planned for all six of the original Avengers to be killed off in the epic blockbuster, a move that we imagine fans would have never been able to forgive.
In 2019, Endgame – the culmination of MCU movies stemming all the way back to 2008 – was released, marking the near-end to the Infinity Saga.
The time-warping film saw Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) sacrifice herself on the planet of Vormir so her closest friend Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) could obtain the Soul Stone as part of their efforts to undo the annihilation caused by Thanos (Josh Brolin) across the universe.
In the end, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) managed to sneak all six of the Infinity Stones away from Thanos, snapping his fingers to cause the Mad Titan and his army to disappear, before dying as a result of the immense power of the stones.
If Marvel Studios president Kevin had got his way, fans may have had to also grapple with the deaths of Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Hawkeye in the film, in addition to Natasha and Tony.
In The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a new book detailing the history of the MCU, Endgame director Joe Russo, who directed the film alongside his brother Anthony Russo, revealed how the emotional ending of Toy Story 3 influenced Kevin’s vision for Endgame.
‘Kevin’s initial pitch was that it was Toy Story 3 – a “they’re all gonna jump into a furnace together” concept,’ reveals Joe Russo,’ it says in the book, according to Screen Rant.
‘The brothers’ pushback was that there was no possible way for the story to be able to take the time to celebrate each one of them. And that, for the fans, it was an impossible scenario to walk out of the theater and process.’
While the Russos thankfully put a stop to the plan, the recently-released animated series What If…? on Disney Plus saw a version of this hypothetical narrative play out, with the third episode imagining what would have happened if the Avengers were murdered one by one.
Had the Avengers all been taken out in Endgame, we may not have had a Hawkeye spin-off in the pipeline, not to mention Thor’s return in his third film and in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel.
What’s more, Hulk is still very much a part of the MCU, recently making a brief cameo in the critically-acclaimed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
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