Robert Downey Jr. Reveals Two Marvel Cameos Cut From AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
Before Thanos started collecting Infinity Stones and turning half the universe to dust, Avengers: Infinity War apparently had a couple more familiar faces waiting to pop up.
Robert Downey Jr. and Joe Russo have revealed that two cameos were filmed for the movie's opening act, only to get chopped before the massive Marvel crossover reached theaters.
One of those appearances would have brought Jon Favreau back as Happy Hogan during Tony Stark and Pepper Potts' early scene in Central Park.
Downey confirmed that they actually went back and filmed his appearance before ultimately deciding the movie worked better without it.
"We had a Happy Hogan cameo in this scene that we reshot, then we 86'd it," Downey Jr. revealed in an interview with CBR.
Happy had been part of Tony Stark's MCU story since Iron Man, evolving from his driver and security chief into one of Tony's closest friends.
Having Favreau appear alongside Tony and Pepper before everything goes sideways would have made plenty of sense, but Infinity War had an enormous amount of story and an absurd number of characters to juggle.
Happy wasn't the only person removed from that Central Park sequence. Russo revealed that he also shot a cameo for the scene. The director was going to play a paparazzo chasing Tony and Pepper through the park before Thanos' lieutenants arrived on Earth and completely changed the mood.
Russo eventually got his MCU cameo elsewhere. He appears in Avengers: Endgame as a member of Steve Rogers' support group for survivors dealing with life after the Blip.
Cutting these two appearances probably helped keep the beginning of Infinity War moving, especially considering just how much ground the movie had to cover.
At the time, it was the biggest MCU crossover Marvel Studios had attempted. Thor, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Captain America and a ridiculous number of other heroes were pulled into the fight as Thanos hunted down the Infinity Stones with the goal of erasing half of all life in the universe.
Happy Hogan may have missed his chance to join Tony for that particular adventure, but Downey's next MCU character couldn't be further removed from Tony's longtime pal.
Downey is returning to Marvel for Avengers: Doomsday, this time playing Doctor Doom. Downey has already offered an intriguing tease about what Marvel has put together for Doom and the upcoming Avengers movie:
"We landed in a place that I think will more than suffice. It's not even about how I executed it. It's about the way it's been structured and the other characters."
The latest Avengers: Doomsday trailer has shown more of Doom, and Marvel fans may not have to wait until the movie itself to get another look at the villain.
Avengers: Endgame Encore is headed back to theaters with four minutes of additional footage, and there's an expectation that the re-release could include at least a glimpse of Doom as Marvel continues down the road to Doomsday.
As for the missing Infinity War cameos, they're another fun reminder of how much material can disappear while assembling a movie of that size. A Happy Hogan appearance and Russo running around Central Park as paparazzi certainly wouldn't have changed the battle against Thanos, but they'd still be pretty fun scenes to see someday.