10 MCU End Scenes That Were Scrapped

9. The Mystery Tag (Iron Man 3)

Iron Man 3 Tony Stark
Disney

The post-credits scene in Iron Man 3 is a fun, but ultimately pointless exchange between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, with Bruce - who is struggling to keep his eyes open - trying his best to serve as Tony's therapist.

More banter between Tony and Bruce is never a bad thing, but interestingly, this scene was a last-minute addition after the original idea for the tag was scrapped.

In 2013, Mark Ruffalo stated that Marvel Studios "had an idea" for what the Iron Man 3 post-credits scene was going to be, but for unknown reasons, they dropped it. Then, Robert Downey Jr came up with the idea for the therapy scene just as the movie was being finished off, and evidently, the filmmakers decided to go with this option.

So... what was the original tag? Why was it abandoned? We don't know. At the time, there were lots of rumours that it would've seen Tony fly off to meet the Guardians of the Galaxy, but with hindsight, that doesn't seem plausible in the slightest.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!