Howard The Duck Was Almost In Avengers: Infinity War
What the Duck!
In a new interview with Fandom, the Russo Brothers revealed that another talking animal almost made it into Avengers: Infinity War. They mentioned that Howard the Duck, who made brief cameo appearances in the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, was in an early draft of the script but was eventually scrapped:
“Howard the Duck was in one draft of the script. Howard the Duck actually had a really good scene… we were going to cameo with Ken Jeong, with Howard the Duck. That was a much-beloved scene by us but it just didn’t end up fitting at all.”
According to the directors, the Duckworldian shared a seen with Guardians leader Star-Lord, in which the latter was gathering information and going after the feathered hero in the process:
“Yeah, it was Quill trying to track down some information from Howard the Duck on some outlier planet and interrupting him during a poker game."
They also revealed that another Guardians cameo was discussed while writing Infinity War, with Cosmo the Dog having also been considered for the movie.
It would have been very interesting to think about the movie with Howard and Cosmo in it, because we all want more talking animals in the MCU. However, the Guardians plotline in Infinity War was very well rounded and to have even more characters in the story would probably take away from the emotional side surrounding the narrative of the Guardians.
This news may be interesting for Phase Four as both Howard the Duck and Cosmo the Dog are still discussed inside Marvel's writing rooms, and even Kevin Feige himself has talked about Howard the Duck:
“You know, the fun thing about Howard is he shows up where you least expect him, so like who knows where he’s going to appear next?”
It would sure be interesting to see more of the character in the MCU, and as the franchise looks set to take a more cosmic direction, expect Howard to feature again at some point or another.