10 Biggest MCU Controversies Ever

It's truly baffling that it took almost an entire decade for the MCU to deliver a major female villain, with Thor: Ragnarok's Hela (Cate Blanchett) being the first out of the gate.

But the original plan was for it to happen much, much sooner, with Iron Man 3's Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) being penned as the movie's overall antagonist in earlier drafts of the script.

However, in the years following the film's release, it's become crystal clear that the decision to suddenly kill Hansen off in the third act of the movie was one mandated by Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter. In director Shane Black's own words:

"There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we've changed our minds because, after consulting, we've decided that toy won't sell as well if it's a female... So, we had to change the entire script because of toy making."

This was backed up by Rebecca Hall herself, who while stating that Hansen wasn't a mere two-dimensional villain, said that her role was actively reduced during filming:

“I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing... Halfway through shooting they were basically like, 'What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?' I was meant to be in the movie until the end… I grappled with them for awhile and then I said, 'Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,' which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on."

Naturally fans weren't happy about learning that Hansen was suddenly jettisoned from the movie due to a crusty old executive wringing his hands about action figures.

Thankfully Perlmutter's oversight of Marvel Studios ended in late 2015, and it was mere months later that the MCU's first female supervillain was announced.