The Epic Fight Scene That Was Almost In Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame was the final chapter for a superhero team that put the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the Hollywood map and changed cinema forever. Brimming with emotional callbacks and exchanges intended to wrap the arcs of the franchise's leading characters, the film also managed to be filled wall to wall with a seemingly uncountable number of on-screen throwdowns.
Balancing the swan song of pivotal Marvel characters with the kind of VFX-infused fights that define the comic book genre was no easy task. While Endgame's creative team has already revealed several clashes that were altered or deleted — including Captain Marvel's confrontation with Thanos and one amazing Black Panther fight scene – during a recent virtual watch and Twitter Q&A session, yet another Endgame scene fans didn't get to see was revealed.
While answering fan questions during an Avengers: Endgame livestream and live-tweet event held on April 27, 2020, co-writer Stephen McFeely shared that the billionaire, super-genius Avenger Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and the guard of Asgard's rainbow Bifrost Bridge Heimdall (Idris Elba) almost had it out in the film.
The revelation was a follow-up to a question ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis posed after McFeely admitted one of the writing team's first-draft mistakes was failing to go back to 2012's The Avengers during the time heist. The Endgame scribe stated that revisiting past films was about balancing the incorporation of important tidbits about characters' arcs with the need to let Endgame be as entertaining as possible. "We were just obsessed with the fine detail [versus] the fun," McFeely said.
But in his answer, McFeely also divulged that at one point, he and his fellow co-writer Christopher Markus had planned to send Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Iron Man to Asgard. On that trip, Iron Man would have duked it out with the all-seeing and all-hearing Asgardian Heimdall in what McFeely described as a "cool [but] not emotional" sequence.
A battle between Asgard's Heimdall and Iron Man Tony Stark almost happened in Avengers: Endgame
Before the events of Thor: Ragnorak, Asgard was as great a place as any to escape to. But Thor and Tony's arrival to the realm in Avengers: Endgame wouldn't have been for some R&R, no matter how badly needed. "We had a sequence where Tony and Thor went to Asgard because technically there were two [Infinity] Stones there," McFeely explained. "Tony, in an invisible stealth suit, fought Heimdall."
For fans who don't remember, there was a point where a pair of Infinity Stones resided on Asgard before it was determined that hiding both there was too dangerous.
The first was the Reality Stone, once wielded by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) at the start of Thor: The Dark World (the MCU film Wonder Woman's Patty Jenkins almost directed). Leader of the Dark Elves — villains who almost appeared in Avengers: Endgame — Malekith tried using the Reality Stone to force the universe into a state of eternal darkness before Thor stopped him. At the end of Dark World, the Asgardians handed the Reality Stone over to The Collector (Benicio Del Toro).
The second gem on Asgard was the Space Stone, which the Asgardians had encased in a vessel known as the Tesseract. They somehow left it on Earth, where it was eventually acquired by Thor's adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) at Thanos' bidding in The Avengers. After the Battle of New York, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) tasked Heimdall with keeping it safe.
It appears that the Avengers: Endgame writing team had considered sending Thor and Iron Man back through time to retrieve both stones while they were on Asgard at the same time. And because of Heimdall's "all-knowing" powers, invisible stealth would have been required to successfully grab the Space Stone, though it probably wasn't as fool-proof as Tony would have liked.
Audiences will never get to see this fight scene between Iron Man and Heimdall, but, like McFeely said, its lack of emotional resonance far outweighed its coolness. Can't argue with that.