'Avengers: Infinity War' Extended Cut Will Reveal More of Thanos' Backstory

At nearly three hours, Avengers: Infinity War was a monster of a movie, even by Marvel standards. Yet there is apparently still so much unused material that explores Thanos’ origin story that a rumored “special edition” release of the landmark superhero movie may actually include these missing scenes.

On Monday, Collider posted a video with Jon Schnepp recapping his panel with The Infinity Gauntlet writer Jim Starlin at the recent Las Vegas Comic Con. Schnepp, having gotten to know Starlin, said he believes an extended version of Avengers: Infinity War will be released on home media, and may be released before 2019’s Avengers 4.

“He was treated really well by the MCU, the film division of Marvel,” Schnepp says about Starlin. “He was invited on set, hung out with [screenwriter] Markus McFeely and the Russos and they talked about Thanos. They asked him a ton of questions and dug into his brain while they were shooting.”

Schnepp then said the filmmakers shot scenes based on Starlin’s input, but these scenes were cut due to the long running time.

“A couple weeks before the movie comes out — they said, ‘We have to cut out a lot of the Thanos backstory. We’re cutting out thirty minutes of his origin, him as a youth. We can’t fit it into the movie.’”

That’s when Schnepp said — again, based on what Starlin knows — “They’re going to put it into a special edition Avengers: Infinity War. My guess, it’ll come out after the Avengers: Infinity War regular Blu-ray.”

Schnepp theorizes that the additional Thanos scenes will not just be deleted scenes, but whole chunks of story “reintegrated” into the film. “I don’t want to say ‘Director’s Cut’ because it’s not coming from the Russos, it’s coming from Jim, they’re going to make a special edition with all those scenes reincorporated into the film.”

Despite the movie’s length, the filmmakers of Avengers: Infinity War did a bang-up job making Thanos a compelling character that his own “origin story” is kind of unnecessary. But die-hard Marvel fans who want everything will surely enjoy the additional thirty minutes of Josh Brolin’s deep grunting.

Avengers: Infinity War will hit Blu-ray and DVD on August 14.