Avengers: Endgame Cut a Big Iron Man and Thor Adventure

After Iron Man first premiered in theaters over a decade ago, it was hard to imagine a film as massive and surprising as Avengers: Endgame. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe weaved an epic story throughout 22 films, finally bringing the Infinity Saga to a conclusion with mind-blowing conclusion packed with shocking moments.

The brains behind Avengers: Endgame had to balance a lot of spinning plates in order to provide a satisfying conclusion, which brought a lot of the journeys for the original Avengers full circle. But there was almost a big adventure with Thor and Iron Man that was cut from the film, and it sounds very exciting.

Warning: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame below.

In the film’s second act, the team breaks up into groups in an effort to time travel through the Quantum Realm and retrieve the Infinity Stones at certain points in time. Tony Stark leads a group to 2012 to retrieve the Stones from the Battle of New York, during the events of The Avengers, while the God of Thunder travels with Rocket Raccoon to secure the Aether from Asgard circa 2014, when Thor: The Dark World is taking place.

But writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed that there was a version where Thor and Iron Man traveled to Asgard together.

“Yeah, our first draft was a version where Tony and Thor go to Asgard, because I like the idea of Tony going, like, in theory going to Asgard and seeing science versus magic, and stuff like that. And then he fought Heimdall, who could of course see him even though Tony had an invisible stealth suit on or something,” McFeely told Fandango.

He continued, “And we did that because there is, in Dark World, to get technical about it, during that time when the Reality Stone is there, the Space Stone is also in the vault. So at the end of Dark World you might remember that Volstagg and Sif go to the Collector and pass off the Reality Stone because they don’t want to keep two stones in one place. So that was one attempt at it, and I think Joe Russo read it and he goes, ‘Why aren’t we going to Avengers? It’s only the most exciting movie.’ And so we went yep, let’s do that.”

In fact, they almost didn’t want to go to the events of The Avengers but ultimately decided against it.

“We were initially hesitant to go back to the first Avengers [movie] because it seemed like we were just pandering and playing the greatest hits,” Markus added. “You like that movie? We’re going right back to that movie! And then it really became clear we were overthinking it in terms of what would be the most fun.”

While it would have been a fun adventure, it’s safe to say that fans are satisfied with the final product.

Avengers: Endgame is now playing in theaters. You can catch our own Q&A with the director next week, when Game Over: An Evening With Joe Russo airs on Facebook Live on Monday, May 6th.

—–

Have you subscribed to ComicBook Nation, the official Podcast of ComicBook.com yet? Check it out by clicking here or listen below.

In this latest episode, we explore Game of Thrones‘ long night, talk more Avengers: Endgame, live-action Sonic the Hedgehog, and more! Make sure to subscribe now and never miss an episode!