I know Avengers: Infinity War is probably setting world records for the amount of secrets covered up at this point, but this one is absolutely ridiculous. Not only was a fake script circulated revealing Loki having a considerably less dramatic first act, but no one thought to tell half the crew that the dummy script was actually not real. I guess ignorance really is bliss.
The story, as it goes, is included in the Art of Infinity War book (H/T ComicBook.com) and features an amazing note outlining, “how they created a version of the script where Loki would get away in an escape pod at the beginning of the movie.”
So far, so very normal. For Marvel anyway. Paul Bettany has already told us about how fake scripts were given out and, as Loki dying at Thanos’ hand was a pretty dramatic moment to kick off the movie, it’s a given that everyone would want that to be kept under wraps by swapping it out for a low-key moment. And, no, I’m not apologising for that terrible pun.
But here’s where it gets weird. Some members of the crew – it doesn’t say who, though you can imagine certain runners and the like weren’t privy – were simply expecting an escape pod scene. As the book says: “When we started shooting that particular sequence, we had crew members who were thoroughly confused. We had to let them know that those were fake versions of the script that they read.”
Amazing. Just the thought of everyone standing around looking massively puzzled while Josh Brolin chokes Tom Hiddleston out sounds like the funniest thing ever to me. Still, I’m glad it got sorted out in the end. Though, it begs the question: what other porkies were told to keep secrets under wraps? Thanos’ click of the fingers replaced by a dab? Red Skull being replaced by Howard the Duck? We may never know…
I have a lot of questions about that process. But not as many compared to the ones we have about Avengers: Infinity War ending.
