Avengers: Infinity War Cut A Major Arc For Hulk At The Very Last Minute
Even though Mark Ruffalo's Hulk hasn't had a solo movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he's had quite the on-screen journey dating back to 2012's "The Avengers." The most crucial part of that journey to date took place in 2019's "Avengers: Endgame" when Bruce Banner and Hulk merged, creating Smart Hulk. The beast had finally been tamed, with Banner and Hulk finally being able to co-exist. It turns out, Smart Hulk was originally supposed to make his grand entrance in "Avengers: Infinity War" a year earlier.
In the commentary track for "Endgame," directors Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, along with writers Stephen McFeeley and Christopher Markus, revealed that Smart Hulk was originally supposed to appear during the third act of "Infinity War" during the battle in Wakanda. As it exists, Bruce fights in The Hulkbuster armor because Hulk won't come out following his confrontation with Thanos earlier in the film. McFeely had this to say about it:
"This event, the creation of Smart Hulk, used to take place in 'Infinity War.' He was fighting in Wakanda. The whole arc of the story was Banner and Hulk were not getting along. Hulk wouldn't come out to help him. At his hour of greatest need, they make some sort of compromise, and Smart Hulk rips out of the armor and beats the crap out of Cull Obsidian, and destroys him. It was pretty clear that the movie could not handle this weird success. The movie needed to just stay in its succession of losses in the third act, which meant some hustling on the part of VFX late in the game."
The fact that the Russo brothers made "Infinity War" and "Endgame" back-to-back remains a truly mystifying filmmaking feat. They both worked extremely well despite major changes like this one arriving late in the game.
'None of them would accept it'
There is this idea that Marvel Studios has everything meticulously planned out. This storyline being abandoned late in the game reveals just how much the filmmakers fly by the seat of their pants and find it along the way. To that end, this decision was made after the filming of "Endgame" had already taken place.
"Cutting that out was a decision made during the editing process on 'Infinity War,' by which point we had already shot 'Endgame,'" Markus explained. "We had shown it to a few audiences, to test audiences, and none of them would accept it," Joe Russo said, chiming in, "I think it was just happening too quickly." Anthony Russo then put in his two cents, positing that telling this story at that time would have felt rushed and out of place:
"Maybe that's it. We just didn't have enough ... because we were in the climax of the movie, I don't think we had enough space to really tell that story in a way that felt satisfying, where you weren't just focusing on, 'Oh my god, there's a madman with almost a complete Gauntlet who's gonna undo half the universe.'"
McFeely agreed, saying, "We did not have it." Despite the trouble it caused for the VFX workers who were putting together "Infinity War" — and Marvel VFX workers have had to put up with their share of craziness over the years – this was the right call to make for the story at hand. McFeely then added a hypothetical scenario to illustrate his point:
"Imagine before Thanos shows up, we had a scene where Hulk comes out of the bushes, and Natasha says, 'Hey, big guy, sun's getting low.' And he says, 'Oh, Natasha, that's not ... We don't need that now.' And speaks in perfect English, and you're supposed to be delighted and jarred by it, and then they're all gonna get dusted. It was just tonally off."
'The snap worked out for him in a way, right?'
Bruce Banner survived Thanos' snap at the end of "Infinity War" but was left devastated. It was in the five-year gap before "Endgame" that he figured out the Smart Hulk thing, which carried more emotional resonance when that reveal finally came. Exploring that the way they ended up exploring it excited the filmmakers, with Anthony Russo saying the following:
"One of the great joys of this was thinking about how every Avenger has their own unique road forward through those five years, and that gave Banner a very unique road, and probably, perhaps the most exciting road.
McFeely also had a pretty interesting take on Hulk's journey, saying, "The snap worked out for him in a way, right? He is his best self. He is sort of the last remaining superhero," McFeely observed. "For most other people, I guess Tony aside, it didn't work out." Joe Russo then summed up the whole Smart Hulk thing, explaining that it was Banner finally resolving all of the conflicts inside of him, as best he could:
"I think the core conflict of who Banner is, is that there are two characters fighting over a host body, and they hate each other, and that's been the story with him for years. At some point, Banner, who's an intelligent human being, decides, 'What if we put the hate aside, and we try to resolve this in a way that is holistic?' And he merges the two of them."