“Avengers: Endgame” Originally Had Captain America Getting Decapitated

Chris Evans confirmed last year that Avengers: Endgame would be his final on-screen appearance as Captain America. I’m sure many people pictured Captain A wiping away a bittersweet tear as Black Widow and The Hulk presented him with a little goodbye cake in the Avengers’ compound lunch room. But it didn’t happen like that in Avengers: Endgame. Entertainment Weekly says that Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo recently revealed that Captain America’s exit was going to be extremely dark.

During a Q&A panel at San Diego Comic Con over the weekend, Anthony and Joe discussed one of their concepts for Captain America’s final scene. In Avengers: Endgame (SPOILER ALERT), Captain America “retires” by going to live in the past with his girlfriend Peggy Carter, while in the future he’s seen giving his shield to Sam Wilson aka Falcon. Well, it wasn’t always like that. Anthony and Joe admit that the original plan was for Captain America to have his head violently cut off by bejeweled space villain Thanos in the 2014 scenes. I’m all for seeing Chris Evans’ head floating on a Mystery Date card, but this is something else entirely.

“We clung to that story line for so long just for that moment of Thanos walking through a portal and dropping Captain America’s severed head,” Anthony said.

Added Joe, “We had most of the script working except for the third act, because Anthony and I were clinging to this concept that we wanted Thanos to walk up to the Avengers and throw Captain America’s head on the ground. We couldn’t give up on it, and finally we said, ‘All right, what if we don’t do that, can we find another way into the third act?’ And that’s when it turned into what it is now.”

I think now is as good a time as any to remind everyone that Disney owns Marvel, which means the sight of Captain America’s severed head rolling towards Tony Stark’s feet would be a thing that appeared in a Disney movie. I know Disney can go dark. But even a weirdo like Goofy would be looking at Mickey like, “Gawrsh, have we lowered our standards that much? There are kids a-watchin. I feel h’yucky about all this.” The final cut of Avengers: Endgame ended up with a PG-13 rating.

Anthony and Joe swear they didn’t change their ending because it would have been too dark, with Anthony adding, “Thanos is a dark dude.” Obviously! He dissolved half of humanity, and he was willing to separate Captain America’s head from his body. Wait, what was Thanos planning to do with the body? Never mind, I do not want to know how he puts the NO in Thanos.

Pic: YouTube