Avengers: Endgame certainly has no shortage of surprising moments, as the film plunges the Marvel Cinematic Universe into an entirely new era. According to the film’s directing team, another unexpected run-in almost came about.
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Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame below!
During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Joe and Anthony Russo spoke about some of the unexpected scenes that came out of the film using time travel — particularly, with having certain characters face off against their younger selves. While both Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) had those sorts of run-ins, it sounds like there were initially plans for Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to meet his past self as well.
“We did have that thread,” Joe Russo explained.
“We did have that, actually.” Anthony Russo added. “There was a sequence where they did finally confront each other in Asgard. I can’t remember exactly why we weaved off of that.”
“I think it overly complicated, and then we liked the ‘Cap vs Cap’ better,” Joe explained.
Even though the God of Thunder might not have directly crossed paths with his past self, the notion of his character growth and identity could certainly be felt all throughout Endgame. After killing Thanos (Josh Brolin) shortly after The Snap, Thor went into a deep depression, and began to come to terms with his choices and his self-worth after a conversation with Frigga (Rene Russo).
“I think there, we also deferred to the storyline between Thor and his mother.” Anthony explained. “[It] was so resonant, that we really wanted to run… That was really more a part of Thor’s journey and repair than confronting his former self. So that’s really what happened there, why we went with that.”
“Basically from his first movie, he is headed for the throne. He has all this burden of purpose on him.” co-writer Stephen McFeely explained in a recent interview. “And so his arc in all these movies is learning to let go of what people expect of him and embrace what he himself feels he is. It turns out Hemsworth is a really good actor. He’s not just gorgeous, he’s funny. It’s [been] such a great second half of the MCU for him. I’m really, really happy that that all came about.”
“I think what his mother tells him, ‘Don’t be who you’re supposed to be, be the best version of who you are,’ includes that,” McFeely continued. “We didn’t want to treat the weight gain like the issue that he needed to get over. Like ‘Thor got fat and now he needs to go on a diet.’ No, he needs to feel OK about himself no matter who he is.”
Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame are in theaters now. Spider-Man: Far From Home will land in theaters on July 2nd.