The Marvel Cinematic Universe has to have its major plotlines worked out in advance, as each film has to lead into the next, but there have been some Marvel films over the years that have had some wildly different original endings than what you saw on screen. Maybe the planned endings just seemed too silly or over-the-top, or maybe they didn't go over well with test audiences, but for whatever reason, they didn't make it into the final version of the movie. Let's take a look at a few secret endings from Marvel movies that you never even knew about.
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00:00With nearly $4 billion in worldwide grosses and counting, the Marvel Cinematic Universe
00:08is clearly doing something right.
00:09But it's still always tempting to imagine what might have been if directors had chosen
00:13to do things a little differently.
00:15Let's do a heroic double-take with these Marvel movie alternate endings you might not
00:18know about.
00:191998's Blade
00:21The version of Blade that made it to theaters ends with our hero slaying a bunch of vampire
00:25minions before settling in for a long-awaited battle versus the movie's big bad guy, Deacon
00:29Frost.
00:30Blade vanquishes Frost once and for all with an overdose of anti-vampire poison, which
00:34he delivers by kicking a syringe right into Frost's forehead, making him blow up.
00:38Kind of cheesy, but it works, unlike the unused alternate ending, which would have shown Frost
00:43achieving his goal of becoming the Blood God and morphing into a whirling fountain of blood
00:47that still somehow has Frost's face in it.
00:50The sequence would be pretty dumb even with today's effects technology, so you can imagine
00:54how bad it would have looked with the digital effects available during the 90s.
00:57Thankfully, we were spared in the final cut.
00:592010's Iron Man 2
01:01The Iron Man sequel gave Tony Stark a pair of bad guys to contend with, mad scientist
01:05Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer, a business rival who partners with Vanko to steal the Iron
01:10Man technology.
01:11Unfortunately for Hammer, Vanko, aka the villainous Whiplash, has a few screws loose, and he isn't
01:16above double-crossing his partner to achieve his ultimate goal of revenge against Tony.
01:20Vanko ultimately ends up dead and Hammer goes to jail, but in the alternate ending, Vanko
01:24meets his maker a little differently, blasted to bits in the last minute after kidnapping
01:28Pepper Potts.
01:292013's The Wolverine
01:32The Wolverine from 2013 marked Hugh Jackman's sixth outing as the iconic Marvel mutant,
01:36but none of them gave him an opportunity to wear his classic comic book costumes.
01:40Director James Mangold looked to fix this problem in his movie, though it still hit
01:43the cutting room floor in the end.
01:45In the theatrical cut, the film closes with Wolverine boarding a jet and heading back
01:48to rejoin the X-Men, but Mangold's unused ending also includes a glimpse of his bodyguard
01:52Yukio, presenting him with a box containing his iconic opera from the comics.
01:56You should have warned of the days of future past, bub.
01:592015's Ant-Man
02:01Observant viewers may have noticed that Ant-Man left a big loose end untied.
02:05After trying to purchase Yellowjacket's size-altering technology, HYDRA agent Mitchell Carson ultimately
02:10ends up getting away with attack during the movie's final battle.
02:13Originally, director Peyton Reed meant to finish his film by having Ant-Man face off
02:16against Carson, but the crossover demands of the Marvel Cinematic Universe dictated
02:20a teaser prelude for Captain America Civil War, so that's a battle that'll have to wait
02:23for another day...perhaps during the sequel.
02:262013's Iron Man 3
02:29In the original ending, Iron Man's foe, the Mandarin—actually, an actor named Trevor
02:32Slattery hired to distract our hero—is hauled off to prison for his part in aiding Aldra
02:36Killian's evil schemes.
02:38That's a far kinder fate than the one he suffers in the earlier version of the script, in which
02:41Slattery uses the unstable Extremis super-soldier serum, and like many of the other poor schmucks
02:45who used it, he goes out with a bang.
02:48Thankfully they were smart and kept him around so they could do that awesome short with him.
02:512009's X-Men Origins Wolverine
02:54For many Marvel fans, one of the most disappointing parts about X-Men Origins Wolverine was what
02:58the movie did with Deadpool.
03:00In Origins, the Merc with a Mouth is reduced to a pale, mute shadow of his comic book self.
03:05Director Devin Hood threw the character's fans a bone with one of several post-credits
03:08scenes attached to different prints of the movie.
03:10One sequence shows a hand emerging from rubble and reaching out to touch Deadpool's severed
03:13head, after which his eyes open and he shushes at the camera.
03:17Apparently he was trying to tell the audience not to ask for refunds.
03:202014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2
03:23Comic readers know that Spider-Man has been through a lot of changes over the years, some
03:27more bizarre than others.
03:28He's always been an orphan, with the death of his parents partially driving him to play
03:31the hero after he was bit by a radioactive spider.
03:34But in a deleted ending to 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter's father Richard reveals
03:39himself to be very much alive.
03:40He even offers a variation on Spider-Man's iconic motto,
03:43With great power comes great responsibility.
03:462006's X-Men The Last Stand
03:49Widely regarded as the worst entry in the X-Men series, 2006's The Last Stand made a
03:53number of unpopular decisions, like killing off a bunch of beloved characters that took
03:57a sought-franchise reboot to untangle.
04:00Even though a series of alternate endings were filmed for Last Stand, none of them would
04:03have made the movie much better.
04:04So it's easy to understand why glimpses of Beast returning to help run Xavier's school,
04:09Rogue returning to the Academy when their powers returned, and Wolverine going back
04:12to Canada all ended up on the cutting room floor.
04:15We still need Professor X to mind-wipe our memories of the juggernaut.
04:182015's Avengers The Age of Ultron
04:21With the biggest cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers franchise has more
04:25options than most when it comes to alternate endings.
04:28Director Joss Whedon took full advantage of this with 2015's Age of Ultron.
04:31He briefly entertained the notion of working Spider-Man into the story, an option nixed
04:35by the studio, who still didn't have the rights to the character during filmmaking.
04:39Whedon also considered showing audiences a glimpse of Captain Marvel in the final scene,
04:42another idea Marvel Studios denied since the character hadn't yet been cast for her
04:46own standalone feature.
04:47Finally, the director thought about revealing that the slain Quicksilver was alive after
04:51seemingly being gunned down during the movie's climactic fight.
04:54However, Whedon correctly realized that this would have cheapened the character's death
04:57earlier in the movie.
04:58Still, we wish we could have seen all the Avengers assemble.