Avengers: Endgame isn’t released on Digital HD until next week, but you can watch a pretty significant deleted scene from the film right now. Spoilers if you haven’t seen Avengers: Endgame, obviously.
The scene occurs directly after Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) death, but instead of fading to black, it appears as though directors Joe and Anthony Russo shot an emotional reaction from each and every one of the major MCU cast members in the immediate wake of Tony's passing. After Tony dies, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is the first to take a knee in honor of the fallen hero, and soon after Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), the Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. all follow.
It’s an emotional moment, but you can also understand why it was cut. There’s an entire funeral sequence that follows shortly thereafter where every major MCU hero is shown mourning the loss of Tony, so if we’d have sat through this “take a knee” scene, that may have felt somewhat redundant. Moreover, while I get the sentiment, there’s something a bit cloying and off about this scene. It feels like it’s milking Tony’s death, as opposed to how it exists in the movie—straightforward, quiet, and hugely impactful. Less is more, as they say.
Obviously in killing off a character as huge as Tony Stark you want to make sure you cover all your bases, especially when assembling this gigantic, tremendously famous cast of characters, so again it makes sense why this was shot. But we also know this moment went through different iterations, as screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote dialogue for Tony to say in his final moments, but Robert Downey Jr. insisted that Tony say nothing. The toll the snap would have taken on his body would have been too much, and as a result the three short goodbyes we see—from Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), James (Don Cheadle), and Peter (Tom Holland)—are more than enough to tug at those heartstrings.
That said, it’s fascinating to see a different way Avengers: Endgame could have gone, and this is a nice reminder of the hugely iterative process of making movies. Check out the Avengers: Endgame deleted scene below.
