Avengers: Endgame Portal Scene Almost Didn’t Happen

The climactic portals scene in Avengers: Endgame could have gone down very differently.

The 2019 mega-grossing Marvel film sees heroes from across the MCU emerge through magic portals to team up for the final battle against Thanos. It’s an iconic moment, and apparently, one that went through a lot of changes.

In an interview with ComicBook, Marvel VFX supervisor and now director of Loki's second episode of Season 2, Dan Deleeuw, detailed different versions of the iconic final battle. "There was a version of the cut, the day that we had all the actors together, and it was like this long panning shot across all the actors."

"It was the day that everyone was there and it was like this giant, expensive in essentiality you had all the actors there, but it just didn't play as well as we wanted.” Deleeuw explains that it was important to slow the action down and give the audience a chance to welcome their heroes back.

He continues: “And so it was so interesting in terms of like, 'Okay, who comes from Titan first? Okay, you get the Guardians and then Star-Lord's going to show up.' And then just being in the theater that day, it's like starting, okay, we got to do Spider-Man last because Spider-Man! So it was very much crafted to be emotional, and I think it was amazing for all of us that opening weekend, how well the fans responded to it."

It’s not the only last-minute change to the portals scene. There was also a moment following Tony Stark’s death in which all of the characters kneel to pay their respects. It was eventually cut for slowing down the film’s pacing, but the deleted scene is available to watch on YouTube.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be getting another 'portals moment' any time soon, with Marvel's next film The Marvels predicted to flop.