"It got overly complicated" - The Russo brothers talk about a cut Thor vs. Thor fight in an early Avengers: Endgame script

Despite the Russo brother's blessing, we're still playing it close to the chest with spoilers. Stop reading now if you haven't seen Avengers: Endgame.

Avengers: Endgame is chock full of great character moments built on the back of the 21 movies that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It makes sense that the three hour epic wouldn't include everything the directors originally envisioned. 

In an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo talked about a Thor vs. Thor fight they had originally planned for the movie. Host Josh Horowitz asked about if they had "Lebowski Thor facing off against Buff Thor," since the movie featured both Captain America and Nebula facing their past selves. 

"We did have a sequence where they finally confront each other in Asgard," Joe Russo said. "I can't remember exactly why we moved off it," Anthony Russo added before his brother finished, "I think it got overly complicated and we liked Cap vs Cap better." 

The decision ultimately came down to how packed the movie already was as the directing duo wanted to make sure the stories they did tell had enough time to impact the audience. "Once you start developing it, you can see how crowded it gets," Joe Russo said. "We wanted to make sure we had story space to create real conflict for the Avengers that were going back [in time]."

The Russos went on to say that the original Avengers focused on the main cast and they wanted to do the same with Endgame, although they wanted to incorporate other characters, like Ant-Man, in major ways due to their importance to the plot. 

The Thor vs Thor showdown would've been great considering how much the character has grown over the last ten years, but what we got was better. "I think there we also deferred to the storyline of Thor and his mother, which was more resonate," Anthony Russo said. "That was more part of Thor's journey and repair than confronting his former self."

Avengers: Endgame is still fresh in our heads, nearly two weeks after seeing it. If you're hungry for more superhero info, check out our breakdown of all the Easter eggs you may have missed in the climax of the MCU.

Contributor

Aron Garst is a journalist and writer exploring the future of games and interactivity. Follow him on X at @GarstProduction.

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