How Avengers: Endgame Was Almost Completely Different

And aside from the Alexander Pierce cameo which they debated between Nicky Fury or Maria Hill, McFeely and Markus also toyed with giving smaller characters bigger parts, and where to fit them during the overarching threads of the story. Markus mused "There were moments, as they brought everybody back, where we’re like, technically, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer have [Ant-Man] suits. Do we bring them back? It became impossible to track the people we did bring back, but also, it’s just going to be an orgy."

A giant superhero would have really been one way of doing it, but hey, we get what we're given.

Aside from that, the screenwriters mentioned the viability of including the Marvel TV characters too, but insisted it was far too much to expect the fans to have seen all the Netflix shows as well as the movies over the course of their lifespan, as well as it messing up their timelines. The idea is that they all got unceremoniously dusted and revived simultaneously with the movie counterparts, so there's no big loss on their end for anyone desperately wondering what happened to Luke Cage and company.

One last cameo seems the most differential though, where Thor was to have much longer scenes with Natalie Portman rather than dredging up archive footage for her bit part. However, Thor's inability to face Jane Foster works far more effectively for representing his mental state throughout Endgame, and seeing the touching conversation with his mother is a much better way of unpacking Thor's struggles instead.