The Avengers had a big win with that shawarma scene but that doesn't mean every Avengers movie needs a random food scene -- especially a gross one with blood in it. Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have been making the rounds again, sharing behind-the-scenes stories on the crafting of the record-breaking movies.
The Marvel writers were asked if there were any scripted moments that the producers and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige considered to be "going too far." They responded with a mashed potato scene for Avengers: Infinity War:
There was one scene, it was in Infinity War. 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. 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.
Wow. That's the story from Christopher Markus to IGN. Bloody mashed potatoes. I'm definitely on Team Feige about cutting that scene -- and not just because bloody side dishes ain't cute. I'm glad we first saw Steve Rogers when we did, coming out of the shadows like a BAMF in Edinburgh. It sounds like this random food scene would've picked up before Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon showed up to help Scarlet Witch and Vision. Whenever it would've happened in the movie, it would've slowed the momentum. And yeah, it would've been a bit nasty.
I'm slightly disappointed they didn't still film it, though, since it sounds like the kind of throwaway scene that didn't belong in a movie but fans would love to see anyway as a bonus in that expensive Infinity Saga box set.
At this point, Marvel fans are learning about all kinds of things that were "almost" in Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame -- like Hulk and the Soul Stone, and Tony Stark in Asgard. I personally find it fascinating to hear how the sausage is made, and to be reminded that the scripts didn't float down from Superhero Movie Heaven but instead took a painstaking process of script editing, adding, rethinking, and then changing things again on set, and then once again in the final post-production edit for the theatrical cut.
You have to do a lot of comics research for movies like Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and the writers recently told CinemaBlend about two Marvel villains they'd still love to see on screen someday. We'll have to wait and see if that ever happens.
Anyway, that's why Kevin Feige makes the big bucks. As the architect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he's also chief of quality control, guarding the gates to what gets on screen and Hulk-smashing any puny nonsense. But he's still letting fans see some of the "bad" deleted scenes, as he called them, for the upcoming Infinity Saga collection from Phase 1-3.
Marvel isn't gearing up for anything on the scale of Infinity War or Endgame for probably another 10 years, per Marvel producer Trinh Tran. But the MCU will still be plenty busy with Phase 4 and Phase 5. Bloody mashed potatoes need not apply.
