As the biggest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date and likely the biggest movie of the year as a whole, Avengers: Infinity War saw practically everyone in the franchise unite to take on the Mad Titan, who wanted to wipe out half of all life in the universe in the name of bringing back a sense of balance.
On top of all the heroes we had running around, though, the pic also found time to sneak in a few surprising cameos as well. After all, Infinity War marked the beginning of the end of the first ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it made sense that the filmmakers would want to celebrate how far the franchise has come over the last decade by squeezing in some familiar faces you might not expect to see. And that includes Joe Russo.
Yes, the co-director of the event movie to end all event movies had a sneaky little cameo in Infinity War but as it turns out, it didn’t make the final cut. Thanks to the all the promotion going on to hype up its home video release though, which is yielding all kinds of interesting tidbits, we’ve now got the scoop on what exactly this cameo entailed.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Joe revealed that his small role would’ve come in a scene which also featured Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan. Apparently, he would’ve played a member of the paparazzi, but ultimately, it needed to go for the sake of pacing, as the director explains:
“Oh yes! There is a deleted scene where Jon Favreau/Happy and I make an appearance in the park,” Joe Russo told EW. “The movie was really long and we were looking for places to pace it up in the opening and unfortunately that was one of the things we had to cut. But I was willing to cut my own cameo in the movie, so it shows how much we really needed to get that park scene moving.”
Though it’s a shame this had to be removed from the film, especially since Russo had cameos in both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, it’s understandable that they couldn’t find room for it in the end. After all, like the director says, Avengers: Infinity War was pretty damn long as it was and though it would’ve been fun to see Joe show up, it likely wouldn’t have added anything significant to the story.
