I seriously can’t imagine Avengers: Endgame without the portals sequence. After Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) wore the Infinity Gauntlet and snapped everyone back to life, Captain America (Chris Evans) prepared to make his final stand against Thanos (Josh Brolin)… only to receive an assist from half of the MCU. It was chilling, and produced some of the most amazing theater-reaction videos we have ever seen. So when the Russo Brothers explain in an interview that they had to scratch and claw with Marvel to keep that sequence in the movie, it makes me happy that they are back for Avengers: Doomsday, because maybe they can recapture some of that magic.
Joe and Anthony Russo are the overlords of Avengers movies in the MCU. They proved they could handle major team ups by directing Captain America: Civil War, then delivered the one-two punch of Infinity War and Endgame. In an interview with Empire (via ScreenRant), though, Joe Russo explains that not everyone was on board with the portals idea, explaining:
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. The original concept was that the camera rotated around Steve Rogers and everybody was collected behind him. It didn’t have these individual entrances for the characters, and that actually was a big debate. I remember fighting that one for months in the edit room. I’m not going to say who was on what side, but that was a grinder. I remember Anth and I going, ‘Fuck it, we’re going to shoot it during reshoots.’
That was a reshoot?! That’s almost as incredible as the story that Robert Downey Jr. had to be convinced to say, “And I am Iron Man” in the same movie. They’re both seminal MCU moments. Try and imagine Avengers: Endgame without this sequence. Without the applause breaks for each returning Marvel hero. Without the incredible payoff of, “On your left.” You can’t.
So, who disagreed with the Russos? Sounds like Avengers: Endgame co-writer Stephen McFeely was at least one of the people who thought the initial cut of the scene worked. He said:
Yeah, I’ll go under the bus because I wasn’t alone. I thought the first cut worked pretty well. I thought it was cool. But Joe is right because Joe has ten percent P.T. Barnum. Right? 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.
I love these behind-the-scenes types stories, the conversations that could lead to alternate histories with our favorite Marvel movies. Given the existence of the MCU Multiverse, a lot of these mistakes can be chalked up to an “alternate universe take.” But doing Avengers: Endgame without the incredible portals scene would have qualified as the biggest mistake, so I’m happy to know that cooler heads prevailed, the reshoots worked, and we got the great sequence to enjoy forever.
