It’s been nine months since Avengers: Endgame hit the cinemas and we said goodbye to some of our favourite ever characters. One of the most emotional farewells was to Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark – when he used the Infinity stones to snap Thanos and his army to their doom.
Using the energy of the 5 stones in conjunction killed the hero who started the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008 – but it could have been a much, much more violet death.
VFX supervisor, Matt Aitken, who worked on the film with the company Weta digital, said that they spoke to directors Joe and Anthony Russo about how exactly they wanted the effect to look after Stark used the Infinity Gauntlet.
“We gave the filmmakers a full range [of looks] to choose from and one of those was where the energy from the stones had acted right up into his face and popped one of his eyeballs out and it was hanging out on his cheek.” he explained to Insider.
Shocking, they “didn’t go for that one” – it might have been a tad too brutal for the 12 rated superhero flick.
Another VFX producer, Jen Underdahl said:
“We did go several rounds on that guy from grisly to not so grisly to more light of a touch, back to ok this is the spot where we’d think the audience is going to get too freaked out, but also really understand that Tony has reached the point of no return.”
He ended up looking like this:
Not pretty – but not SAW-level-horrific, either.
We ended up seeing a freaky zombie Iron Man in Spider-Man: Far From Home in the end, so we’ve got our fair share of creepy Tony Stark looks, regardless!