Skip to main content

Now that the writers and directors involved in Avengers: Endgame can finally talk about the film, some interesting tidbits are coming out little by little. One of the more interesting discussions was an explanation by the writers about why the Hulk and Black Widow’s relationship was ignored.

Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo
Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo | Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff seemed to have a spark

Back in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff had a spark that never seemed to play out after that film. Fans thought it was forced and out of left field, but the relationship was never addressed in Avengers: Infinity War.

The Avengers: Endgame writers are now explaining why they didn’t continue to develop the idea of a Black Widow and Hulk romance.

The romance was scrapped

During an episode of Empire’s podcast, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely explained that they actually wrote scenes between Banner and Romanoff and shot them for Avengers: Infinity War, but ultimately decided to abandon the idea.

McFeely noted: “We certainly tried to. In Infinity War we have scenes… wrote ‘em, shot ‘em… of them sort of hashing that out… It was ‘You’ve been gone, I’ve moved on’ — that kind of stuff.”

He continued, “But it became very clear that, if a scene was not in the ‘A-plot,’ it would NOT survive to the end of Infinity War… That thing had to be on rails just to get to the finish line. You couldn’t wrap up loose threads just because you wanted to.”

As for their relationship in Endgame, Markus and McFeely shared why the two characters barely interacted, with McFeely sharing, “He was smart Hulk in this movie and it did seem a little odd, in the midst of everyone’s mourning and his change to a 2000-pound genius, to go, ‘and they’re dating!’”

He added, “We thought it would be more elegant not to address that.”

Why keeping Avengers: Endgame spoiler-free was so important

Directors the Russo Brothers recently explained why they were so intent on keeping all spoilers out of the media about Avengers: Endgame.

They shared why the Endgame spoiler ban was so important to them after the movie was released in theaters, with Joe Russo noting:

“This is the environment we live in now. We can’t control the internet. It’s its own monster. Whether there’s malicious intent or compulsive intent to reveal story points of pop culture content, we wanted to make sure that we asked for a level of decorum in how all of that was dealt with.”

Anthony Russo added: “We certainly respect the idea that when you see a film, you want to discuss it, you want to talk about it, you want to share your experience. And that’s a really important part of the process. But it’s trying to establish a window where people are given the opportunity to see the film.”

They even had to give notoriously loose-lipped Mark Ruffalo a dummy script to keep him from sharing any spoilers!

Best in Entertainment