Considering "Marvel's The Avengers" features Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Loki and Hulk, it's amazing that Joss Whedon was able to cut the film down to just 143 minutes. Now, with the DVD and Blu-ray release of the summer's biggest movie on tap for Sept. 25, fans have the opportunity to see what Whedon was forced to cut out of the film. The early results: A lot of stuff that would have made "The Avengers" a better movie.
On Tuesday, an alternate opening sequence for "The Avengers" was released, showing S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) recounting the events of the final battle between the Avengers and Loki's Chitauri army on the streets of New York. Now, courtesy of Latino Review, comes an extended scene detailing how Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) integrated himself into modern society.
Some catch-up: At the end of "Captain America: The First Avenger," Rogers (who you know as Captain America) winds up in modern times. When S.H.I.E.L.D. head Nick Fury comes to get him in "The Avengers," Rogers is working out in a gym, presumably where's been hanging out for the last month? Year? Who knows. It's an abrupt re-introduction for the character, one that seems done in the service of time instead of narrative flow.
Yet, Whedon did film an entire prologue to that scene, one that establishes Rogers' melancholy and confusion with great effect ... and even finds room for a Stan Lee cameo. (Lee did appear in "The Avengers" anyway, in an alternate scene.)
The director also apparently wrote an entire scene that reconnected Rogers with Peggy, his love interest from the 1940s (Hayley Atwell played her in "Captain America"). As the director told the New York Times:
One of the best scenes that I wrote was the beautiful and poignant scene between Steve and Peggy [Captain America's 1940s love interest] that takes place in the present. And I was the one who was like, Guys, we need to lose this. It was killing the rhythm of the thing. And we did have a lot of Cap, because he really was the in for me. I really do feel a sense of loss about what’s happening in our culture, loss of the idea of community, loss of health care and welfare and all sorts of things. I was spending a lot of time having him say it, and then I cut that.
Watch the new clip above and continue to speculate about what kind of movie "The Avengers" could have been. Check out "The Avengers" on DVD and Blu-ray on Sept. 25.
[via Latino Review]
