Avengers 3 was originally supposed to be three hours and 15 minutes long.
Anyone who watches Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame one after the other trains their own stamina quite well anyway, but originally Avengers 3 should have been even longer – a whole 45 minutes! Thanos comic creator Jim Starlin reveals this in an interview with comic YouTuber Near Mint Condition.
One of the longest standing industry veterans, Starlin created Thanos in Marvel Comics many decades ago. No wonder that he was initiated into the complete plot of Avengers 3 and 4 by Avengers director Joe Russo before the cinema release (and had to remain silent for a year and a half). Just before Avengers: Infinity War was released in cinemas, however, he received a notification from Russo that the beginning of the film would be drastically shortened:
The 45 minutes at the beginning of the film with Thanos were cut out. There was a whole sequence with him getting the first Infinity Stone. They had to cut it out even though they filmed it. They didn’t want to spend even more money on effects and also didn’t want the film to be as long as Endgame. At that time nobody could estimate how successful Avengers 3 would be.
Jim Starlin
link to YouTube content
Thanos acquires
the first Infinity Stone from the planet Xandar, home of the Nova Corps from Guardians of the Galaxy 1. So in the original one, we could very likely have expected an epic siege where Thanos – as he usually does – dismantled the entire planet. This would have resulted in something more organic as to why he so easily sends the Hulk onto the boards with the power of the first stone.
According to Starlin, there were even plans to restore the deleted scenes in the Blu-Ray version, but this plan was apparently scrapped somewhere in the production chain. Too bad.
But what do you think? Couldn’t Infinity War have been a little bit longer? Or are you quite satisfied with the fact that the film has given itself an even more detailed prologue?
