Marvel Studios
In the months following its release, Avengers: Endgame exceeded expectations and went on to become the highest-grossing movie in the history of cinema, and therefore, became arguably the most successful film of all time.
However, just because Avengers: Endgame ended up being perfect (at least in my opinion), doesn’t mean it was always that way, as just like all other movies, Endgame had to go through a couple rewrites.
Warning: spoilers for Avengers: Endgame will follow.
In an interview with Canada.com, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus revealed that Professor Hulk’s trip to the Sanctum Sanctorum to retrieve the Time Stone from Tilda Swinton’s Ancient One almost played out much differently:
“At one point, we had a different way of getting to the Time Stone which involved some characters breaking into (Doctor Strange’s) Sanctum Sanctorum and being pursued by all the weird stuff that happens to be trapped inside there. It was totally off story and unnecessary and it got cut, but it was fun to write.” [Canada.com]
While the Sanctum Sanctorum scenes in Dr. Strange are some of the most visually arresting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, McFeely and Markus are on point when they say it was “totally off story”, because while it would have been fun, it would have ultimately made an already complicated movie even more layered — perhaps too layered.
McFeely and Markus’ entire interview with Canada.com is certainly worth the read, as the screenwriting duo — who penned Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War and Thor: The Dark World prior to their work on Infinity War and Endgame — go into fascinating detail on how they crafted the film’s epic plot.
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Eric Italiano is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Contact him: eric@brobible.com.