Deleted scenes allow fans to make a movie they love even longer. Sure, most of the time those scenes were deleted for very specific reasons, but seeing them is always like getting a few extra presents on your birthday. They make what was already good, even better. This goes doubly for a film as massive as Avengers: Endgame.
Even though the film is three hours long, the home release (now available on digital, coming to Blu-ray August 14) has six deleted scenes running just under five minutes long, all of which are worth your time. But, what are they, why were they deleted, and why do they exist in the first place? We talked to the writers of Avengers: Endgame, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, about each one.
Goji Berries
The first deleted scene shows Tony and Pepper joking about goji berries and revealing that they own an alpaca. It takes place immediately before the first moment we see five-years-later Tony in the finished film, as he’s walking out to tell his daughter it’s time for lunch.
“In a way, [that scene] is representative of a bunch of things we wrote over the course of the two movies which were establishing scenes of people in their lives before the plot got to them,” Christopher Markus told Gizmodo. “Very many of them, if not all of them, were cut because the plot hadn’t gotten to them yet. In the movie you see Tony come out on the porch and go over and find Morgan, which is already pre-plot, but at least it’s telling you something new.”
Bombs on Board
As the Avengers figure out the Time Heist, Rhodey asks Steve about the Tesseract. Specifically, why he had to crash the ship at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger and why he couldn’t just jump out. There’s no answer.
“Part of the joy of that whole sequence is it’s likely as meta as we’re likely to get in any of these movies,” Markus said, acknowledging the scene is a bit of a response to unanswerable questions they’ve gotten over the years about the ending of The First Avenger.
“That scene could have gone on forever,” said McFeely. “We wrote a ton of them. We shot a few of them, but it turns out you didn’t have time to talk about each stone more than once.”
The Suckiest Army in the Galaxy
The Avengers watch footage from the Battle of New York and Rocket laughs at them for taking so long to defeat the Chitauri, who he calls the suckiest army in the galaxy.
“So the same goes for this one,” McFeely said, equating it to “Bombs on Board.” “It’s pretty hilarious and, again, it’s calling attention to this sort of ‘[Destroy the] Mothership’ easy answer of The Avengers.” Markus added, “But we have another scene that took care of that and two more stones.”
You Used to Frickin’ Live Here
On 2013 Asgard, Rocket catches Thor peeing over the ledge and asks him for directions around his home, which Thor is not helpful with.
“We were getting into Asgard too early,” Markus said of the scene. “The next scene told you everything you needed to know. It was basically two set-up scenes before Thor and Rocket got in proximity to a stone, which was one too many.”
Tony and Howard
In a very brief moment in 1970 New Jersey, Tony and Howard emerge from the underground and Howard asks Tony to work for him. Tony has a great response.
“That’s a lovely scene that Chris wrote and it almost never changed,” McFeely said. “That just gets cut for time.”
Avengers Take a Knee
After Tony Stark gives his life, the remaining Avengers take an unplanned knee in respect of their fallen friend. Watch the scene here.
“I think taking a knee is probably Joe and Ant [Russo],” said McFeely, crediting the directors. “Yeah, I don’t think we wrote specifically that they [take a knee],” said Markus. “[But] I’ve been of two minds about it. It was affecting to see everybody do it but it was also a little preplanned that, in the midst of this battle, everyone chooses to do the exact same gesture.
“[Joe and Ant are] also right,” McFeely said. “It sort of eats the lunch of the next few minutes which is the same thing but different.”
“In a movie that was three hours long. I was surprised there aren’t more deleted scenes there,” McFeely said, when asked about the included scenes.
“[But] beyond everybody wanting more, you have to commit to your final product,” Markus added. “That is the statement. The movie you released. And to go and ‘We’ve got 15 other scenes…’ it’s like extra tracks on a re-released album. This album wouldn’t be classic if it needed the extra tracks, so are you weakening the impact by doing it?”
Avengers: Endgame is now on digital and comes to Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K August 14.