It's hard to imagine Avengers: Endgame being any more emotional than it already is, but Kevin Feige almost took things past the breaking point. The Russo Brothers have revealed that Feige originally wanted to kill off Thor and Captain America.
Avengers: Infinity War's ending left many fans with a feeling of uncertainty and that anything could happen to their favorite heroes. While Avengers: Endgame may have killed off a couple of them, the initial plans for the epic conclusion were even crazier.
During an appearance on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Russo Brothers reflected on the epic showdown with Thanos and those who lost their lives in the climactic battle. They revealed that the ending could have resulted in even more character deaths because Feige originally had the idea of wiping out the three main superheroes from the original Avengers squad. "Kevin did actually pitch at one point taking all the OGs off the board," Joe Russo shared. "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 have more emotional catharsis."
Anthony Russo shared that they discussed the fates of the main characters in the early production days and that Feige's ideas never actually made it into any scripts, adding that even though the two added deaths would've been very emotional, they had to make careful decisions about which characters they should sacrifice for the sake of the storytelling. "Kevin early on had pitched this idea that it was like 'Toy Story 3' where they should all actually jump into the fire in order to save the universe," Joe Russo said. "We thought you have to step out storytelling on something of this scale, so we weren't quite sure how the math would add up to get to that."
While it will be hard to top Endgame's emotional level, as it was the culmination of 22 films, there's no doubt Feige has something special in store for the next two Avengers films. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars are both scheduled to release in 2025 as part of phase six. While not much is known just yet, Secret Wars is on track to the MCU's biggest film yet, as the comic it's based on, for those unaware, features a wide array of characters, as seen in previous Avengers films, but on a much bigger scale.
In the Secret Wars comic book storyline, heroes and villains (including the X-Men) from separate universes unite for battle on a new world called Battleworld. The heroes would most likely be seen battling villains like Magneto, Doctor Doom, and the Kang the Conqueror, who was first hinted at in Loki and will appear in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Avengers: Endgame is available to stream on Disney Plus.
Source: Josh Horowitz/Twitter