10 Shocking Movie Twists That Nearly Happened

What's a film without a little something unexpected to liven it up? Just ask Tyler Durden, Darth Vader or M. Night Shyamalan. That's right, it's one of the bread-and-butter tropes of pretty much any genre: the plot twist.

But, just because the trusty twist is so common, doesn't mean it can't go awry.

Sometimes the twist comes shimmering out of the blue and claps us upside the head, sometimes it's merely the reversal of our expectations, chipping away at misguided preconceptions. For whatever reason, there are a whole series of unexpected developments lurking in the recycle bin of some pretty big movies, from game-changing showstoppers to fun little add-ons, all of which have been scrapped before we ever got to see them...

When it comes to Loki, actually dying is always a twist - so much so that fans had an exceptionally hard time believing he dies at the beginning of Infinity War. And it was that same fan backlash that caused Marvel to bring him back in Thor: The Dark World.

We all know the story: Loki turns up, turns good, turns bad, kind of helps save the day and then fakes his own death. And that is certainly the case in the second instalment of the God of Thunder's MCU quadrilogy, but it wasn't meant to be. The Dark World sees the rise of the Dark Elves, a vengeful race of pointy-eared aliens who want to destroy the Nine Realms, and so on and so forth. After initially siding with the baddies, Loki redeems himself with a late-in-the-day sacrifice, snuffing out his flame for good. What a twist!

Alas, Marvel viewers wouldn't let him be. Test screening fans went ballistic when the credits rolled and their divine trickster was still in the ground, and the Marvel money men did a swift heel-face turn. Thus, an additional stinger was filmed to tack on the end, in which, as we know, Loki is alive and well and living it large as the new King of Asgard.