Avengers: Endgame had its share of memorable moments, but one sequence in particular will go down as one of the most iconic and enduring scenes in MCU history.
During the climactic battle, Thanos manages to defeat Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America - but Steve Rogers isn't about to stay down. As the Sentinel of Liberty dusts himself off and prepares to fight until his last breath, he hears Sam Wilson's familiar "on your left," and turns around to see Black Panther and the rest of the recently-revived heroes assembling through Doctor Strange and Wong's mystical portals.
The "Portals" sequence has had such a lasting impact that it might be difficult to imagine it playing out any other way, but co-director Joe Russo has now revealed that the original idea for the scene was quite different - and he had to fight for the version we saw in the finished film.
"There was probably some debate regarding the most famous moment, I think, of all the Marvel films, which is the portals opening at the end of Avengers: Endgame," Russo tells Empire.
According to the filmmaker, instead of witnessing the heroes arrive through the portals, we'd have seen "the camera rotate around Steve Rogers and everybody was collected behind him."
"I remember fighting that one for months in the edit room," Russo added. "I'm not going to say who was one what side, but that was a grinder. I remember [Anthony] and I going, '[frick] it, we're going to shoot it during reshoots."
It seems writer Stephen McFeely was one of the people involved with bringing the film to the screen who wanted to stick with the first version of the scene, as he "thought the first cut worked pretty well."
"One of the lessons I've learned over the course of working with these guys and working with Marvel is emotional-logic trumps logic-logic. It's not a cop-out. It's what the movie wants. It's what your audience wants," he added.
You can have another look at the scene in the player below.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027. Both films will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Being able to create stories and explore characters within the Marvel Universe fulfilled a life-long dream of ours, and we discovered a powerful connection with audiences in each film that we made. We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with Kevin, Lou and the entire Marvel team to bring this epic adventure in storytelling to new and surprising places for both the fans and ourselves”, said The Russos in a statement after the SDCC panel.