Avengers Producer Admits Chris Evans’ Beard Cover-Up in Post-Credit Scene “Looked Terrible”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe didn’t invent the idea of delivering audiences additional content after the credits of a film rolled, but they arguably perfected the concept, yet that doesn’t mean every post-credits scene is perfect, with Marvel’s The Avengers executive producer Jeremy Latcham acknowledging how disappointing Chris Evans’ Captain America looked in the final shot of the film. The final result on handling the situation was for Evans to obscure his face with his own hand, as there was no reason for audiences to focus on his appearance, with Latcham merely pointing out the challenges of the situation.

Up until the release of Avengers, Marvel Studios films would include a scene either midway through the credits or all the way at the end that would hint at an upcoming project. Initially, Avengers had only aimed to include one scene, which revealed that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) had been collaborating with Thanos (Josh Brolin) to eradicate Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Shockingly, after the film premiered overseas, there was a last-minute decision to film a brief scene in which the Avengers all had a bite to eat in hopes of humanizing them after thwarting Loki’s plans. Posing a problem for the scene, however, was that Evans had grown a beard for Snowpiercer, which he wouldn’t have been able to shave off and grow back in time to work on that film.

The production attempted to cover up his beard with makeup prosthetics, which was a failure on all fronts.

“If you look closely, we pasted this special-effect skin makeup over it. But it was all bumpy and looked terrible, so we just asked him to lean on his hand to cover it up,” Latcham revealed in the book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, per CBR.

Luckily, with the scene merely requiring the heroes to sit around a table silently, there wasn’t much debate or discussion over why Captain America obscured his face with his hand, as anecdotes about the difficulties of that scene being filmed only emerged after its theatrical release. 

Interestingly, Avengers was directed by Joss Whedon, who would go on to helm reshoots for Justice League, which also required an actor to film scenes with some facial hair complications. Superman actor Henry Cavill had grown a mustache for Mission: Impossible – Fallout, requiring his Justice League scenes to digitally erase his facial hair.

Stay tuned for details on the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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