Back in Avengers: Age of Ultron, director Joss Whedon was setting up a romance between Bruce and Nat. However, Hulk ended up on another planet for two years before reuniting with Black Widow in Avengers Infinity War. After a brief and awkward reunion, some Marvel fans were disappointed that their relationship didn’t develop in Avengers Endgame. After all, there was a five-year time jump, which is plenty of time for them to explore their feelings for each other surely?
Some fans even felt it should have been Bruce who was with Nat when she had to sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone instead of Hawkeye.
Now Infinity War and Endgame screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have revealed why they didn’t address the romance sub-plot.
Speaking with EMPIRE’s Avengers Endgame Spoiler Special Interviews Podcast, McFeely said: “We certainly tried to. In Infinity War we have [unused] scenes…wrote ‘em, shot ‘em…of them sort of hashing that out.
“‘You’ve been gone, I’ve moved on’ – that kind of stuff.”
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He continued: “It became very clear that if a scene was not on the ‘A plot’, it could not survive Infinity War.
“That thing has to be on rails just to get to the finish line.
“You couldn’t wrap up lose threads just because you wanted to.”
On Endgame, Markus added: “He was smart Hulk in this movie and it did seem a little odd, in the midst of everyone’s mourning and his change to a 2000-pound genius, to go, ‘and they’re dating!’”.