When Avengers: Infinity War came out last year, it gave audiences the MCU’s largest-scaled adventure yet. One that was so big, in fact, that there were several sequences that the filmmakers weren’t even able to fit in. Prioritization is a natural part of the editing process: asking questions like is this worth seeing? Does this really enhance the story? Or, as was the case in this instance, is this scene too violent?
Speaking with IGN recently, co-writer Christopher Markus detailed a gruesome moment that had been written, but never even made it to the camera. It took place immediately after the events of Captain America: Civil War, with the titular character, Falcon, and Black Widow all sitting around a table, and all beaten and battered.
What’s the gruesome part? Well, go ahead and read it for yourself down below:
“There was one scene, it was in Infinity War,” Markus shared with the outlet. “We wrote it, we didn’t shoot it. It was part and parcel of a whole thing where we realized we were picking up the characters too early in their arc before Thanos had gotten to them. It was a scene of basically Widow and Falcon and Cap in hiding post-Civil War and they’d just been through a big fight with criminals, and Cap was eating mashed potatoes, and Falcon says ‘You’re bleeding into your mashed potatoes.’ He looks at him like…yeah he is bleeding into his mashed potatoes.”
He added, “I remember Kevin [Feige] going ‘He’s bleeding into his mashed potatoes?! I don’t want to see that!’ Yeah, maybe we went a little too…something.”
The family-friendly design of Avengers: Infinity War and the MCU as a whole, consistently maintaining a PG-13 rating despite several drawn-out and extensive battle sequences, doesn’t really make room for anything that gruesome. Perhaps the most horrific moment in the series came in Endgame with Thor full-on decapitating Thanos (though a lot of that was without gore). So, it’s safe to say that Kevin Feige knows what his audience wants.
But even though the MCU itself has remained rather light-hearted throughout the years, recent additions to the comic book genre – such as Zack Snyder’s DC ventures, and Marvel’s Deadpool saga – have implored a much darker tone. And Todd Phillips’ Joker, the boldest and most shattering addition to the comic cinema canon since The Dark Knight, has remained in control of the box office for the majority of October.
So, while the Marvel Cinematic Universe has yet to cross the R-rated barrier, there’s still plenty of other gruesome content for you to check out (i.e. go see Joker).