Avengers: Infinity War had people crying in their seats, but it could have also had audiences
barfing in their popcorn.
In a recent conversation with IGN, co-screenwriter Christopher Markus described a scene which
was scripted, but never shot, for the movie.
It's a good thing, too, because it might have taken the audience right out of the film's
story by making them sick to their stomachs.
Markus described the scene, which would have happened early on in Infinity War.
He said,
"It was a scene of basically Widow and Falcon and Cap in hiding post-Civil War, and they'd
just been through a big fight with criminals, and Cap was eating mashed potatoes, and Falcon
says 'You're bleeding into your mashed potatoes.'
[Cap] looks at [Falcon] like... yeah, he is bleeding into his mashed potatoes.
I remember Kevin Feige going 'He's bleeding into his mashed potatoes?!
I don't want to see that!'
Yeah, maybe we went a little too... something."
"I think it's gratuitous, but whatever."
It's "far," Mr. Markus... the word you're looking for is "far."
Stoic soldier that he is, we suppose it's pretty easy to imagine Captain America being
wholly unconcerned by the fact that he's chowing down on bloody potatoes but, as usual, it
appears that Feige's instincts were pretty spot-on here, because we're sure that nobody
wanted to see that.
Of course, when you're scripting an absolutely massive crossover film like Infinity War,
you're going to have a few things that don't make the final cut.
During their appearance at San Diego Comic-Con this past summer, Markus and his co-writer
Stephen McFeely talked about a couple of other notable scenes that didn't make it past the
conception stage one that would have been really cool, and another that... well, would
have, quote, "sucked rocks," as McFeely delicately put it.
This would be the original version of Thor's adventure, which in the finished film had
him journeying to Nidavellir to convince the giant dwarf Eitri to craft him a battle axe
capable of taking down Thanos.
It proved to be a tense, funny, memorable sequence; Thor was forced to essentially kick-start
a dying star, he and Rocket began to forge a sweet bond, and Groot assisted with mounting
Stormbreaker, the weapon with which Thor would ultimately fail to go for the head.
"You should've gone for the —"
Yeah, yeah, we know, Thanos.
God, give it a rest already!
Anyway, it's not so much that Markus and McFeely's conception of the sequence was different — it's
more that the pair simply had no idea what to do with Thor during the film.
Markus explained that what they came up with was, quote, "much too adventure-related, and
insufficiently character-based," and involved Thor battling a giant snake.
McFeely admitted that while Infinity War's script was in this draft, the duo actually
feared for their jobs:
He confessed:
"It was dark for a long time, because we hadn't done well enough."
Eventually, the duo came up with the quest to Nidavellir, which both made narrative sense
and provided some excellent character beats for the God of Thunder.
While it certainly sounds like their original plans for Thor would have dragged the film
down in the middle, another scene that didn't make it before the cameras one involving the
Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange might have been really cool, but would have also felt
ported over from a different movie entirely.
The scene would have taken place during the confrontation on Titan between Thanos, Strange,
Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
During the fight, Strange would have employed the same trick once used on him by the Ancient
One, giving the Mad Titan a poke in the head that would have sent him hurtling through
the multiverse.
Thanos would have been forced to relive all of his genocidal crimes, and in the climactic
moment, we would have gotten our onscreen introduction to an iconic and immensely powerful
Marvel character: the Living Tribunal, a godlike being who ensures that balance is maintained
throughout the multiverse.
The Tribunal would have judged Evil Grimace harshly, but then, Thanos realizing that the
whole ordeal was just more "smoke and mirrors" from Strange would have basically snapped
out of it, and returned to the fight against our heroes.
But while that sounds cool on paper, Markus explained that the sequence still would have
thrown off the movie's pacing.
He quipped:
"We were in the middle of a really fast-paced fight, so to stop it for an LSD trip kind
of sucked the air out of it."
It's always interesting to know what might have been, although it's safe to say that
Infinity War did not suffer for its lack of giant serpents and bloody mashed potatoes.
It just goes to show that even the creative minds behind our favorite movies can stumble
pretty hard and it also makes us thankful that Feige was around to remind the ace scribes
that they were not, in fact, writing a horror movie.
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