The Deleted Infinity War Scene That Went Way Too Far

Avengers: Infinity War could have had audiences barfing in their popcorn.

In a recent conversation with IGN, co-screenwriter Christopher Markus described a scene which was scripted, but never shot, that might have taken an audience member or two right out of the film's story by making them sick to their stomachs.

The scene in question would have happened early in Infinity War, and Markus described its conception as being "part and parcel of a whole thing where we realized we were picking up the characters too early in their arc before Thanos had gotten to them." This implies that at some point, a recalibration took place which resulted in several character introductions playing out a little differently — although it's doubtful that any earlier versions of said introductions were quite as gross as the one Markus described.

"It was a scene of basically Widow and Falcon and Cap in hiding post-Civil War, and they'd just been through a big fight with criminals, and Cap was eating mashed potatoes, and Falcon says 'You're bleeding into your mashed potatoes.' [Cap] looks at [Falcon] like... yeah, he is bleeding into his mashed potatoes. I remember Kevin [Feige] going 'He's bleeding into his mashed potatoes?! I don't want to see that!' Yeah, maybe we went a little too... something."

It's "far," Mr. Markus... the word you're looking for is "far." Consummate soldier that he is, we suppose it's pretty easy to imagine Captain America being wholly unconcerned by the fact that he's chowing down on bloody potatoes — but, as usual, it appears that Feige's instincts were pretty spot-on here, because we're pretty sure that nobody wanted to see that. 

Of course, when you're scripting an absolutely massive crossover film like Infinity War, you're going to have a few things that don't make the final cut. During their appearance at San Diego Comic-Con this past summer, Markus and his co-writer Stephen McFeely talked about a couple of other notable scenes that didn't make it past the conception stage — one that would have been really cool, and another that... well, would have "sucked rocks," as McFeely delicately put it. (via IGN)

This would be the original version of Thor's adventure, which in the finished film had him journeying to Nidavellir (accompanied by Groot and Rocket) to convince the giant dwarf Eitri to craft him a battle axe capable of taking down Thanos. It proved to be a tense, funny, memorable sequence; Thor was forced to essentially kick-start a dying star, he and Rocket began to forge a sweet bond, and Groot assisted with mounting Stormbreaker, the weapon with which Thor would ultimately fail to go for the head.

Originally, though, it's not so much that Markus and McFeely's conception of the sequence was different — it's more that the pair simply had no idea what to do with Thor during the film. Markus explained that what they came up with was "much too adventure-related, and insufficiently character-based," and involved Thor battling a giant snake. McFeely admitted that while Infinity War's script was in this draft, the duo actually feared for their jobs: "It was dark for a long time, because we hadn't done well enough," the scribe said.

Eventually, the duo came up with the quest to Nidavellir, which both made narrative sense and provided some excellent character beats for the God of Thunder. While it certainly sounds like their original plans for Thor would have dragged the film down in the middle, another scene that didn't make it before the cameras — one involving the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange — might have been really cool, but would simply have felt ported over from a different movie.

The scene would have taken place during the confrontation on Titan between Thanos, Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. During the fight, Strange would have employed the same trick once used on him by the Ancient One, giving the Mad Titan a poke in the head that would have sent him hurtling through the multiverse.

Thanos would have been forced to relive all of his genocidal crimes, and in the climactic moment, we would have gotten our onscreen introduction to an iconic and immensely powerful Marvel character: the Living Tribunal, a godlike being who ensures that balance is maintained throughout the multiverse. The Tribunal would have judged Evil Grimace harshly, but then, Thanos — realizing that the whole ordeal was just more "smoke and mirrors" from Strange — would have basically snapped out of it, and returned to the fight against our heroes.

Markus explained the pair's decision to remove the sequence by offering up a damn good question: "If [the Living Tribunal] exists, then why is Thanos really a problem?" He added that, even if he and McFeely could have found their way around that logical stumbling block, the sequence still would have thrown off the movie's pacing. "We were in the middle of a really fast-paced fight, so to stop it for an LSD trip kind of sucked the air out of it," he said.

It's always interesting to know what might have been, although it's safe to say that Infinity War did not suffer for its lack of giant serpents and bloody mashed potatoes. It just goes to show that even the creative minds behind our favorite movies can stumble pretty hard — and it also makes us thankful that Feige was around to remind the ace scribes that they were not, in fact, writing a horror movie.