Marvel's boss once suggested that Avengers 4 kill Iron Man, Thor and Captain America

The directors of "Avengers 4", the Russo brothers, revealed a shocking inside story. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige initially suggested that they kill three main characters in the movie "Avengers 4": Iron Man, Thor and Captain America.

Speaking on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, Joe Russo explained: "Kevin actually proposed at one point to just kill off all the OGs. We thought that was too radical and that the audience wouldn't be able to digest it. In fact, choosing one or two characters to be sacrificed throughout the movie might allow you to have those moments throughout the movie where the action will stop and you can have catharsis, and then continue the narrative, and then have more catharsis."

Anthony Russo added that they discussed the fate of major characters early on, and that Feige's proposal never actually made it into any script, though they were "acutely aware" that after Avengers: Infinity War, "it felt like no one was safe." They had to make careful decisions about which characters they should sacrifice in order to tell the story.

Of the idea, which was discussed on a conceptual level, Joe Russo said: "Kevin brought up the idea early on that, like in Toy Story 3, they should all jump into a pit of fire to save the universe. We didn't think we could tell a story of that scale, so we weren't sure how to do the math to pull that off."

The next Avengers movie, Avengers 5: Reign of Kang, is scheduled to be released in 2025, six years after Avengers 4.

Feige recently explained that the long gap between Avengers movies is partly because the big superhero team-up movies are now scattered across each phase of the MCU, changing the placement of the Avengers movies in the release schedule.