Today at Comic-Con, Avengers: Endgame screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed a load of interesting details about their massive Marvel movie during a panel titled, funnily enough, “Writing Avengers: Endgame.” The most fascinating things we learned came from the ideas they had in early drafts that never made it into the finished product. Like, for instance, how Red Skull could have helped Captain America save the day.
Yup, you read that right. Markus revealed that, prior to work on the Endgame script (and presumably Avengers: Infinity War, too), Marvel developed a “manifesto” which collated all the loose ends that had developed in the MCU over the years that could be cleared up via time travel.
The writer explained:
“We wrote a big document that was everything you could possibly do in these movies. In there, is the Red Skull is clearly alive… He’s awesome! Let’s find a way to use him. Let’s tie this whole thing together… We did send him to space and send him a way very much on purpose…”
Markus added that he and McFeely didn’t know where Johann Schmidt would end up when they penned Captain America: The First Avenger. So when it came to these movies, it really could’ve gone anywhere. Apparently, one idea was for Cap and Red Skull to team up to retrieve one of the Infinity Stones.
“There’s a fascinating one-act play to be written of Captain America going to Red Skull. Never wrote it. In the manifesto document, there was one theory that Cap who goes to space… and he has to collaborate with Red Skull to get the Stone.”
Of course, the villain did end up appearing in both Infinity War and Endgame, which revealed that the former HYDRA leader had become a servant of the Stones after his disappearance into space in the 40s and now stood guardian over the Soul Stone on Vormir. Fans would’ve loved to have seen Steve come face to face with his old enemy, but unfortunately, they were kept apart. We can imagine an awkward meeting taking place though when Cap returned to Vormir to put the Soul Stone back at the end of Avengers: Endgame.