Contrary to Collider’s ‘scoop’ late yesterday evening, the Avengers: Infinity War Blu-ray won’t come packing a 30-minute extended cut replete with the Mad Titan’s mooted backstory. Forget the Snyder cut; release the Thanos cut!
Over on MCU Cosmic, Jeremy Conrad has waded through the speculation to clarify one or two things – chief among them being the fact that Infinity War‘s home video release won’t include any extra footage of Thanos. Why? Because it doesn’t exist.
Despite Jim Starlin’s assertions that Joe and Anthony Russo initially shot “almost 30 minutes of completed footage” for the Mad Titan, we now have evidence to suggest that said scene(s) was cut pretty early on in production. Not only that, but a foreign listing for Avengers: Infinity War‘s Blu-ray all but confirms that Marvel is about to include only six-and-half-minutes of deleted scenes. And not a second more…
So while “Hunt for the Mind Stone” and “Happy Has a Perspective” are name-dropped as potential deleted scenes, there’s no mention of a 30-minute extended cut for Avengers: Infinity War. And, frankly, this echoes a previous interview with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (h/t The Playlist), in which the screenwriting duo confirmed that Marvel’s mega-movie almost devoted more attention to Thanos’ homeworld, and the ways in which he recruited his Black Order.
As far as scenes that were changed over the course of writing the script, the magazine details how the writers had extended flashback scenes with Thanos. One scene included Thanos dealing with the social rejection from the other Titans on his home planet, while others showed how he recruited his Black Order.
Whatever the case, Avengers: Infinity War is expected to debut via digital platforms sometime this month before making its way over to Blu-Ray and DVD in August.