Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo have revealed that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige originally considered killing off both Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in the 2019 film.
Following the release of Avengers: Infinity War, there were many different predictions made amongst Marvel fans about which of the heroes would die in the 2018 film's sequel. The Russo Brothers explained to Happy Sad Confused podcast host Josh Horowitz how they approached Endgame's final battle with the knowledge of this fan expectation. "That's the stakes of the movie, right? We knew the audience felt that way," Joe Russo said. "We were acutely aware coming off of Infinity War that we put them in a position where they felt like nobody was safe. And there was a lot of rumors swirling about who was going to die."
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"Kevin [Feige] did actually pitch at one point taking all the OG [Avengers] off the board," Russo continued. "We thought it was way too aggressive and that the audience wouldn't be able to process it, and that in fact picking one or two characters to make sacrifices throughout the movie might give you moments throughout the film where the action could stop and you could have emotional catharsis and then continue with the narrative, and then add more emotional catharsis." Anthony Russo added that this idea was pitched in the "very early days" of Endgame's production. "It wasn't like there was a script or anything that had that in it," he said.
All of the original team members seen in 2012's The Avengers would have died if the Russos had decided to go with Feige's original idea, including Thor and Captain America. This would mean that films such as Thor: Love and Thunder and shows like Hawkeye likely wouldn't exist or would be told far differently than they were. Ultimately, the Russos decided to have Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) sacrifice themselves to save the universe instead of the "fairly obvious" decision for Steve Rogers to make the sacrifice.
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The decision to kill off Tony Stark was not met without internal resistance at Marvel, however, as Iron Man director Jon Favreau was initially against the idea. "I remember pacing on the corner of a stage on the phone with Favreau trying to talk him off a ledge," Joe Russo said recently. "[Because] he's like, 'You can't do this. It's gonna devastate people and you don't want them, you know, walking out of the theater and into traffic.'"
Avengers: Endgame is available to stream now on Disney+.
Source: Happy Sad Confused, via Twitter