Captain America: The First Avenger was a solid introduction for Chris Evans' Steve Rogers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the final battle saw the villainous Red Skull transported to an unknown destination by the Tesseract. We'd later learn that he was stranded on Vormir as the guardian of the Soul Stone, but it sounds like the final act of that movie could have been very different.
During a recent interview with Yahoo Movies, co-writer Christopher Markus revealed that an earlier version of the 2011 movie featured the Star-Spangled Avenger batting a giant HYDRA robot.
"A large chunk of the third act was Cap fighting this robot," he revealed, confirming that it was going to be called Panzermax and controlled by Hugo Weaving's Red Skull. As fun as that might have been, the writer would go on to explain why the robot never made it in front of cameras.
"I think eventually it was a budget and time thing," Markus explained. "Where it was like, 'We really can’t be spending that much time.'"
The MCU was still in its infancy way back at the start of the 2010s, so it's no wonder Paramount Pictures - the studio Marvel Studios worked with before being acquired by Disney - wasn't going to throw that sort of cash at the project. Whether this concept could be brought back down the line is hard to say, but many comic book fans remain anxious to see more HYDRA and Red Skull on screen.
What do you guys make of this scrapped idea from Captain America: The First Avenger?