Though the long-awaited reunion between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers looks to have been saved for next year’s Avengers 4 (if that), Avengers: Infinity War did contain a few nods to the rift created between the pair in Captain America: Civil War. And according to directors Anthony and Joe Russo, the year’s biggest film came close to dedicating just a little more screen time to the tension between the two heroes.
Earlier this week, the Russo Brothers hosted an Infinity War screening and Q&A, where Avengers 4 details may’ve been in short supply, but they sure had a lot to say about their last feature. Among the various topics touched upon in the discussion was a deleted scene featuring Tony and his fiancée Pepper Potts, though it’s clear that Stark has bromance rather than romance on his mind. /Film’s Peter Sciretta reports the evening’s insights as follows:
“They tried to plus the scene with Pepper and Tony, they shot a new scene in additional photography at the Starkhome with Tony sitting in a lawn chair fidgeting with Steve’s flip phone and Pepper comes home but it didn’t work out so they didn’t include it.”
Given how much plot is already packed into Infinity War’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime, the Russo Brothers may well have made the right call in leaving this scene out, allowing for a quicker transition to the start of Iron Man’s interplanetary adventure.
In any case, it feels like a safe bet that the relationship between Tony and Steve is going to play a more prominent part in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War sequel, with the central cast being heavily reduced to mostly Phase 1 heroes. And speaking of trimming down, Joe Russo recently indicated that he and his brother are currently immersed in the important work of deciding which scenes are worth keeping in Avengers 4. As it stands, the film reportedly sits at around 3 hours, but we’ll see if it stays that long when the pic hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019.
