Hard to believe it’s almost been a year since Tony Stark bravely gave his fictional life to save the entirety of the fictional Marvel universe (or universes, per some Doctor) in Avengers: Endgame, eh? With one snap while wearing a snazzy glove, Iron Man restored what Thanos had disintegrated, but wound up charred and barbecued to death because of it. However, instead of a mere roasting, RDJ was almost split in half by the dang thing, and Weta Digital didn’t hold back on the gruesomeness at first.
During a recent interview, VFX supervisor Matt Aitken and Marvel VFX producer Jen Underdahl told Insider about the different versions of Tony’s climactic scene they had shipped. Aitken started strong, saying the following:
“We gave the filmmakers a full range [of looks] to choose from and one of those was where the energy from the stones had acted right up into his face and popped one of his eyeballs out and it was hanging out on his cheek.”
Underdahl corroborated this, adding quite a bit:
“We did do a Two-Face version where you got inside and you saw the sinews and you saw them in the teeth and that…It takes you away from this really powerful moment. You don’t want to be focusing on that or grossed out…We did go several rounds on that guy from grisly to not so grisly to more light of a touch, back to OK this is the spot where we think the audience is not going to get too freaked out, but also really understand that Tony has reached the point of no return.”
For the most part, I feel like Marvel kind of grew up with its audiences, at least a little bit. The ending of Infinity War must have been traumatic for some people, but I was just surprised they actually went there, with that possible audience alienation and destruction of many a child’s nights certainly being a gamble. Granted, I think most fans aren’t gullible enough to believe they’d actually kill off Spider-Man and Black Panther, but still.
Circling back to Iron Man, though, and I think the charred flesh on Tony gave more than enough of an impression that the dude was toast. Getting all bloody with it would have been too over-the-top, especially that eyeball bit. Sure, the Marvel movies are cheeky, but dang, that would of killed the scene entirely. I heard some people sniffling in the theater when I saw it way back when and while I never had much of an emotional connection to these Marvel flicks, I get it.
In any case, I think Avengers: Endgame wound up as good as anyone could have hoped for. Let’s just see if the folks at Marvel Studios can keep this energy going into Phase 4 and beyond.