It’s been five years since moviegoers marveled at Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel superheroes from different titles unite in one cinematic universe to stop a great threat from wiping half of the universe and built the setting for Avengers: Endgame. But did you know that an early cut of Infinity War was going to feature more of the Mad Titan?
Marvel Comics artist Jim Starlin revealed that there were plans to give Thanos 45 extra minutes of screen time, but they were eventually cut from the final product. During an interview with Near Mint Condition, the Thanos creator revealed that he was informed that Thanos would have a nearly hour-long scene where he’d be collecting all the Infinity Stones. Unfortunately, the scene was removed because they didn’t want the film to be as long as its eventual sequel.
Another reason why the scene was cut out was also because of budgetary reasons. Marvel Studios realized that the cost to include the scene’s VFX would have been too much, which led to the stone-searching scene being removed.
“But about a month before the movie came out, I got an email or something from Joe saying, ‘the 45 minutes of Thanos that we had at the beginning of Infinity War, we had it cut.’ There was a whole sequence of him getting the first gem and they had to cut that out. They shot it, but they never wanted to spend the money on the effects and they didn’t want the movie to be as long as the second one [Endgame] was. They didn’t realize it was going to be quite the hit it was.”
One could imagine what Thanos had to go through in order to get the first stone. Unfortunately, that 45-minute scene is unlikely to see the light of day. Starlin revealed that there were plans to add it as a bonus feature for the film’s DVD release but Marvel Studios changed their minds.
“Oh well, I wish they would too. They had planned on doing some of that for the DVD and then they didn’t.”
Perhaps the decision to cut 45 minutes of Thanos searching for the first stone was a good idea. Just seeing him reveal the Infinity Gauntlet with the first stone during the film’s opening was menacing enough as it is and showed how Thanos was a threat even before he completed his mission. Shame that those scenes now reside in Marvel Studios’ archives.