Avengers: Endgame is set to be released on Blu-ray next week, and to promote that, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently visited London for a Q&A hosted by Empire.
While you might not think there are secrets left to be revealed about the movie at this stage, Feige had plenty to say. His chat unveiled details on when the funeral scene was shot, which character was cut from that, the chances of a massive "Infinity Saga" box set, and when Robert Downey Jr. first learned that Iron Man would be killed off in the epic superhero ensemble.
Feige even reveals what role
Logan played in how Tony Stark's demise was handled!
There are some great new pieces of intel about
Avengers: Endgame and the Marvel Cinematic Universe here, so to check out some highlights from the Q&A, hit the "View List" button below.
The Scene That Always Makes Kevin Feige Cry
Avengers: Endgame has a lot of moments that bring a tear to the eye, but there is one, in particular, that gets Feige every time he sees it. However, it's not the deaths of characters like Iron Man or Black Widow. Instead, it's that epic Portals scene.
"Almost every version, starting with the green screen, just actors running down a green ramp version, got me. Every time," he reveals.
"More so than any of the deaths. At some point I know they're not dead, the actors aren't dead, it's not real. That moment of them all returning, with me it goes even deeper because it's, 'Holy Toledo, we've introduced all these actors, we've made movies of all these characters.' So that got me a number of times." Given how awe-inspiring that scene is, no one can blame him!
When That Star-Studded Funeral Scene Was Shot
It's no secret that Marvel Studios told cast members that they would be shooting a wedding when they were, in fact, there for Tony Stark's funeral, but what might surprise you is just how long they've been sitting on that scene. According to Feige, it was shot back in October 2017,
"the day we shot the 10th anniversary photo."
"That's why we did that photo then, because we had everybody there," he explains, while finally shedding some light on how that photo happened.
"And it was astounding, having all those actors there, and it's very solemn in the movie, because they're all great actors, it's very effective. On the day it was just insane."
Where The Idea Of Infinity War And Endgame Came From
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at one of these! According to Feige, he and a number of others from Marvel Studios go on retreats to work on ideas for the future of the MCU while isolated away from typical distractions back in Hollywood. It was at one of these that the two-part finale was dreamed up.
"We were on our third retreat, perhaps, five years or more ago, when we started talking about what would become Infinity War and Endgame. And in particular, how do we pay off this purple guy that Joss [Whedon] set up at the end of Avengers and start to intertwine him with these awesome Infinity Stones that we have that provide wonderful macguffins in all these individual films."
"When you put them together, we thought it could be more," he explains.
"And it was on that retreat that we thought of doing two movies at the same time, which has its pros and cons."
How Logan Inspired Iron Man's Death
Marvel Studios has frequently killed off villains for good, but we're used to seeing heroes come back to life. After all, they faked us out with Nick Fury's apparent demise in
Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Feige pointed to that as being a good example of why Avengers: Endgame needed to deliver
"stakes and real emotion."
Surprisingly, it was then that Feige looked to a non-Marvel Studios superhero movie for inspiration.
"We saw Logan like the audience did, in a theater having nothing to do with the making of that film and went, 'oh my god, what an amazing ending for Hugh as this character,'" he explains.
"And there are only a handful of examples where an actor so associated with a character can go out perfectly. And Logan is the only one that jumps to mind right now, there are not that many of them. And that's what we desperately wanted to give Robert, and that was what our focus was on."
Robert Downey Jr. Learned Of His Fate A Long Time Ago
We know that Marvel Studios had to pay Robert Downey Jr. a lot of money to return for
Captain America: Civil War and
Spider-Man: Homecoming, but the actor learned about Iron Man's final fate long before that.
"I remember pitching that to Robert Downey Jr. probably in December of 2015, I think," he remembers, which places this conversation around the time Civil War was being shot.
"I pitched him the idea of the two-part finale for Avengers and Homecoming, which was a part of that leading into it. It took a little while, but eventually it came together. I think at first it doesn't seem real that this journey will come to an end. But as it got closer to filming, it really was emotional for all of us, and particularly for him." How that never ended up leaking is hard to say!
Gwyneth Paltrow Knows Nothing About The MCU...
Recently, Gwyneth Paltrow made headlines when it was revealed that she had no idea she had starred in
Spider-Man: Homecoming. As it turns out, she also forgot that Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury!
"Tom Holland [was] coming up to me, saying, 'Is that Michelle Pfeiffer? What is happening?'" Feige laughed, remembering that funeral scene. "Gwyneth Paltrow [was] asking why Sam Jackson was there, and the other actors [were] jumping in saying, 'What are you talking about? He's Nick Fury! You've been in movies with him.' But it was really something special."
Interestingly, Feige was also at the funeral...sort of. "I was on the balcony of that house," he reveals. "In that shot, as you see in the movie, right inside the cabin, was video village where I was sitting with [executive producer] Trinh Tran and Joe and Anthony."
One Character Who Didn't Make It Into The Funeral
Amazingly, everyone at the funeral was really there, but Marvel Studios did briefly consider adding one more character with visual effects during post-production.
"We did at one point toy with putting Cassie there," Feige reveals, referring to Scott Lang's teenage daughter.
"At one point we thought of digitally adding her so it's the family."
As for why it didn't happen, he says:
"[We] thought, 'This is the heroes celebrating the other heroes and the loss of Tony', so we didn't do it. Aside from Smart Hulk and Rocket and Groot, everybody's actually standing there."
More Deleted Scenes?
We know for a fact that the
Avengers: Endgame Blu-ray doesn't feature certain scenes that were filmed, including one revolving around Katherine Langford as an older Morgan Stark. The question is, are we actually going to see them somewhere down the line?
"If we do a big, giant Infinity Saga box set, we might include- I’m assuming if you're going to spend the money to buy a box set with everything in it, you're a fan. And it'll take more than a couple of really, really bad scenes to turn you," he laughed.
"There are things that we think nobody should ever see."
"And I think we've just recently been discussing that now we can start to show some of our less proud moments." Disney+ would be a good platform for that and it's hard not to wonder what those might be. For now, it seems as if we'll have to just wait and see.
Head over to Empire for more highlights from Kevin Feige's Q&A.
Continue reading below to check out some
recently released VFX stills from Avengers: Endgame!
Captain Marvel leads the charge as Earth's Mightiest Heroes hover over Titan II and attempt to formulate a plan to take down Thanos and bring the trillions who died back to life.
In this before and after shot, we see how the ship the team travelled in was enhanced with visual effects and outer space was added in the background. Sean Gunn is also replaced with Rocket!
This is a particularly interesting shot as we see how those effects surrounding Captain Marvel were created. We also see that some changes were made to the colour of the hero's costume.
With the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy dead and gone, Rocket was given the spotlight and pretty much became an Avenger as a result. Needless to say, he looked awesome in this movie.
Captain Marvel's costume has undergone some changes since her first appearance in the 1990s, but this suit didn't last particularly long as the 2023 version was obviously completely redesigned.
The Guardians' ship hovers over Titan II, and this is a gorgeous piece of imagery. Moments later, Thanos would be decapitated by Thor and that would set the 2014 version on his quest for revenge.
These revealing before and after images show how the battle between the two versions of Captain America was created. It was an impressive sequence and clearly not that easy to put together.
The team blasts into outer space here as the imagery introduced in
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 showing how spaceships essentially enter lightspeed made its return in
Avengers: Endgame.
Who would have guessed that Stormbreaker was entirely CGI? Then again, considering the fact that it passed right by Brie Larson's head, it's understandable that Marvel didn't want to risk anything!