'Captain Marvel' Deleted Scene Would Have Revealed a "Time Lens"

Samuel L. Jackson may have deliberately misled fans earlier this year when he claimed that Captain Marvel could time travel, but he wasn't entirely wrong when it comes to interesting time-related concepts considered for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film. It turns out that an early draft of the film contained scene that may not have offered a power Carol Danvers could use to help take down Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, but it would have given fans a unique look at Captain Marvel's past.

In a recent interview with HuffPost, visual effects supervisor Chris Townsend revealed that there was a "time lens" featured in one of the film's early drafts that could have made for a very cool visual and possibly more.

"One of the scenes in the early draft of the script was the idea of a 'time lens,'" Townsend explained. "When she was going back and looking through her memories, or the Skrulls were peering through her memories searching, you would have sort of this time lens ... where you would have moments where Carol would appear in modern day and back in her past all in the same way."

It's a cool-sounding concept, but if you're having a hard time visualizing what that would look like or how it would even work, you're not alone. Townsend went on to explain that even he had no idea how he was going to make that come to life.

"I remember reading it for the first time in an early draft and thinking, 'Whoa, that's really hard. I have no idea how to do that and that could be so cool.' When I read the script, I have almost no idea about how I'm going to do almost all of it, and you sort of have to make it up as you go and figure it out as you go, and hopefully work with amazing people to bring it all to the screen."

The interesting-sounding time lens scene isn't the only one that either didn't make it from draft to scene or didn't make it in quite the way it was originally envisioned. The scene in Captain Marvel where Jackson's Nick Fury names the Avengers was almost longer than it ultimately was in the final film.

"The whole movie is about Captain Marvel inspiring Nick Fury to change his whole outlook and to, you know, make SHIELD into a place that can deal with an entirely different world he didn't know existed," Boden said on a recent episode of The Empire Film Podcast. "In a way, the whole movie is about how Captain Marvel inspires him to form the Avengers, so we just wanted to make it very specific at the end. It was a very late decision to see it on the screen. We did shoot him writing 'The Avenger Initiative' on the screen and it just felt like we didn't need to see it."

Would you have liked to see the time lens scene in Captain Marvel? Let us know in the comments below.

Captain Marvel is in theaters now. Other upcoming Marvel Studios films include Avengers: Endgame on April 26th and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th.

-----

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 talk about Dragon Ball Super maybe returning, we're breaking down Kofi's trip to the set of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and more! Make sure to subscribe now and never miss an episode!