WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.
When Thanos performs the snap toward the end of Avengers: Infinity War, he’s briefly transported to a place where a much younger version of his adopted daughter Gamora resides. After speaking with her for a beat, both he and the audience are launched back into the battle of Wakanda, from which the Mad Titan quickly escapes, thereby leaving the survivors to grapple with their loss. It turns out Tony Stark’s universe-saving snap in Avengers: Endgame was supposed to feature a similar scene with his daughter.
According to /Film, directors Joe and Anthony Russo revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that 13 Reasons Why actress Katherine Langford and Robert Downey Jr. shared a scene together that was ultimately cut from the film. Langford, whose late casting was revealed in October, was actually playing an older, teenage version of Stark’s daughter Morgan, who was played by Alexandra Rachel Rabe in the film.
“There was an idea that we had that Tony was going to go into the metaphysical way station that Thanos goes in when he snapped his fingers. And that there was going to be a future version of his daughter in that way station,” Joe explained. However, the scene’s inclusion was more confusing than not:
“The intention was that his future daughter, because these films are dealing with magic, his future daughter forgave him and sort of gave him peace to go. And the idea felt resonant,” Joe Russo added. “But it was just too many ideas in an overly complicated movie.”
Anthony added that, thanks to the test screenings, they realized the audience “didn’t feel an emotional association with the adult version of his daughter.” As a result, “it wasn’t ringing to us and resonating with us on an emotional level,” so they decided to cut it altogether.