Four years on and Avengers: Endgame remains firmly cemented in the hearts of Marvel Cinematic Universe fans everywhere. Between the death of Tony Stark, the end of the Infinity Saga, and the impressive distinction of being an inch-perfect wrap-up of a 22-film-long story, the Russo brothers’ magnum opus won’t be forgotten any time soon.
At just over three hours long, Endgame is a monster of a film even by MCU standards, and many scenes and set pieces had to be booted to the cutting room floor. Perhaps one day we’ll get the uncut version, but for now, such possibilities are safely restricted to our individual headcanons.
But according to one Hayley Atwell, who portrays Peggy Carter in the MCU, it’s safe to assume that what we got is the best we could have gotten. In a recent interview with Josh Horowitz, the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One star revealed a cut scene from Endgame‘s denouement, namely in which Steve knocks on Peggy’s door after having traveled back to the past to be with her.
And when they told me there’ll be this long shot of the house and the doors would already be opened… They didn’t want him knocking on her door, and her answering it, and her reaction, because that seems to be obvious and very literal.
She would go on to note how the off-camera moment between Steve and Peggy combined with the scene we did get with them (in which they slowly dance in Peggy’s living room), made for a much more impactful ending than the cut scene would have allowed for.
But there’s something for me when I watch it now, [it’s] more evocative by the fact that you just see the door opened, the song’s already playing, it’s like that they had that initial moment at the door just for themselves, right? So, how that then lives in the audience’s imagination is they get to fill in the emotion of that for themselves, rather than seeing Peggy have that emotion, and then you go in, and they’ve already found each other.
Say what you will about the Russos’ endeavors outside of Marvel, but when they’re plugged into the world of Kevin Feige, the brothers hardly miss a beat, and their choices in post-production, as revealed by Atwell, are a testament to that.
Avengers: Endgame is available to stream on Disney Plus. Elsewhere, you can catch Atwell in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, now playing in theaters.
