14 Unexpected And Lesser-Known Facts From Behind The Scenes Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Do you remember which MCU movie was the first MCU movie you watched and enjoyed? Did it suck you into the world of comic book superheroes or were you already emotionally invested in stories that span decades and multiple generations?

Bringing iconic characters to the silver screen (and into our homes via television) is a time-honored tradition that may actually date back to before you were born. Although not from Marvel, the first comic book to be turned into a television series was The Adventures of Superman in 1958.

MCU gifted us via CBS The Incredible Hulk in 1997, starring Lou Ferrigno. Today Marvel and DC have created live-action TV series, animated TV series, and an incredible amount of movies (many of which have been re-created more than a handful of times with new A-List actors trying their hand at some of the world's most popular superheroes!)

We're not going to waste any brain cells debating MCU vs DC, don't worry. Today, we're here as Disney fans (first and foremost,) and we want to gush about the MCU.

From Iron Man in 2008 to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022, and many more yet to come, there's a high probability that there are tons of fun facts and behind-the-scenes trivia tidbits that you're totally unaware of.

Therefore, we hope you'll enjoy a collection of those fascinating facts today because we assembled 14 of them straight from the MCU.

1. The Pentagon and The Department of Defense were, at one point, collaborating on The Avengers (2012.) However, they "quit..."

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Why would representatives from The Department of Defense quit their collaboration efforts with the MCU? Glad you asked.

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They were deemed to unrealistic, especially when it came to its "treatment of military bureaucracy."

In an interview with Wired.com, representative and Hollywood liaison from the Department of Defense Phil Strub explained:

"We couldn't reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it. To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn't do anything" [with the film.]"

Straub added with a lamentable tone: "It just got to the point where it didn't make any sense."

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2. Tom Holland attended the Bronx High School of Science for two days to prepare for his role as Spiderman in 2012's Spiderman: Homecoming.

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Peter Parker is a high-achieving student at the fictional Midtown School of Science and Technology, so Holland shadowed Arun Bishop, a senior at the Bronx school.

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In an interview with Business Insider, Bishop explained that Holland was being passed off as his "cousin," Ben, who gained admittance to the competitive school courtesy of a military parent who recently moved to the area.

Bishop explained:

"What Marvel wanted was just to get the experience of a typical STEM high schooler's life. They didn't want me to do anything special — just walk through the day as I would any other day."Disney

Amusingly, though, Holland got bored with his "undercover" mission and on his second day was telling students that he was Spider-Man, but Bishop says nobody believed him.

"Most of them wouldn't believe him at all. Because that just doesn't make sense, right? Why, at Bronx Science, would there be an actor who's been shadowing me for a day and a half?"Disney

Eventually, the classmates believed Holland when he showed them his ID and "went a little crazy."

"It's weird now when I see him in a commercial or something. There's a disassociation where my brain knows I've talked to this guy and shown him around school, but seeing him on the screen is different," Bishop told Business Insider.

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3. In Black Widow (2021,) Yelena continuously teases Natasha's "hand-on-the-ground, spine-in-peril superhero landing," but that wasn't originally written in the script.

The writers added it when they overheard Florence Pugh (Yelena) making fun of Scarlett Johansson (Natasha.)

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In an interview with MTV News, Pugh said:

"The whole me taking the piss out of Scarlett's pose was because on-set, in the stunts rehearsals, the stunties were like, 'And we gotta figure out your pose.' And I was like, 'Oh cripes, I have to have a pose. What's realistic? How should you land?' And they were like, 'Oh, well none of the superhero poses are correct for landing.' And I was like, 'Yeah, what's Scarlett's? I mean, surely that would hurt.' And they were like, 'Oh yeah, if she were a real person and she landed, she'd have so many broken bones.' And I was like, 'Does Scarlett know this?!'"Disney

After that, Pugh teased Johansson on set about the "broken bone" truth and that's when the writers overheard the joking around and added it in.

Johansson's light-hearted and humorous take to the writers "adding" in the joke was more like they took "ten years of work" and flushed it down "the toilet." Don't ever say Scarlett Johansson doesn't have a sense of humor!

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4. Wunmi Mosaku was very excited about her role as Hunter B-15 in Loki, but she didn't remember ever auditioning for the role.

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In an interview with Decider she explained that she had been doing some auditions after wrapping up Lovecraft Country but what she read, she didn't really know what was going on:

"I was sent a script—not a script, some scenes for an untitled project. I had no idea what I was auditioning for. Generally, with those kinds of things, you take it seriously because if anyone’s being top secret, it’s likely to be something big. And so I sent off my audition, which was a self-tape, and then I was home in the UK at my mom’s house and I got a call from my agent in the middle of the night saying I’d been offered Loki, and I was like, “When did I audition for Loki?”Disney

Hey, we all know what that's like, right? Haven't you ever ordered something off of Amazon to treat yourself and then forgotten about it, only to be delighted upon delivery? Same thing, basically.

She laughed and added, "I was so excited but couldn’t tell anyone. My sister is a huge Marvel fan and I had to keep a secret from her until I was given the okay."Disney

5. For 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, Paul Bettany also experienced a surprise with Marvel casting, although his situation was a little different.

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Bettany already knew he was cast as Vision but when Marvel HQ unexpectedly called him after he died in Avengers: Infinity War (2018,) he thought there was no way it was good news and surely he was being canned.

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In an interview with Buzzfeed, Paul said:

"I looked at my wife and I went, 'I think I'm getting the can.' I was very nervous as I go over there. I wanted everybody to feel comfortable and not feel icky about the whole thing, because I thought they were going to be gentlemen, and just look me in the face and say, 'It's over.'"Esquire

He continued:

"So I went in. I said, 'Look, there's just absolutely no hard feelings. It's been a great run. Thank you so much.' And they were like, 'Are you quitting?' And I went, 'No, aren't you firing me?' And they went, 'No, we were gonna pitch you a TV show.' That's how I found out."Disney

WandaVision went on to be Disney-Marvel's first series and it was considered a huge success, including winning a few Emmys!

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6. Tom Holland confessed to his interviews at SiriusXM that he farted on Zendaya while working on a swinging stunt for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

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He said, "It's tough, the suit's tight, the harness squeezes it out."

Zendaya noted, "I felt the rattle," reflecting on the intense emotions experienced during filming. According to Dr. Daniel Kahneman, a renowned psychologist, "Emotions can significantly influence our perception of reality, making moments feel more intense than they actually are." This insight highlights how actors like Zendaya immerse themselves in their roles, creating authentic experiences that resonate with audiences.

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Holland said he confessed, even if the rattle made his confession a little redundant.

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7. In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011,) Hayley Atwell's Agent Peggy Carter was not scripted to hesitantly reach for Captain America's chest, but who could resist Chris Evans half naked?

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Atwell confessed:

"When Chris Evans first took his shirt off on the set of Captain America, I just instinctively grabbed his man boob. They kept it in the film. So we did a couple of takes of me being really inappropriate with my hand on his pec for the duration of the scene."Disney

No one could blame her. Honestly.

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8. Hannibal Buress turned to Twitter to hire a look-a-like to attend the Spider-Man: Homecoming premiere in his place.

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According to Vanity Fair, the man Hannibal chose was Joe Carroll, someone who had experience acting as a stand-in for Buress at an awards show in the past.

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Burress put out a tweet offering $500 to a "lookalike with solid comedic timing for an event tonight."

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In the interview with Vanity Fair, Burress said that he was out of town filming another movie, so it wasn't really meant as a "prank," even if it was funny.Tag.

"I think people think I was trying to be weird. If I was available, I would have gone," he said.

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9. Dave Bautista's hilarious line as Drax in Avengers: Infinity War was improved, according to the script's writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

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In an interview with Yahoo! the screenwriters said the script only contained the "where" and "who" parts of the humorous exchange.

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The first time Bautista blurted the line out on set, the first reaction from Markus was, "Okay, you’re very good at your job."

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10. Iron Man 2 (2010) gifted us the scene where a hungover Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr) is sitting inside a giant donut at Randy's Donuts, enjoying his snack, but the owner of the small business had bigger ideas for the shop's appearance.

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Director Jon Favreau told the LA Times Hero Complex blog that he assumed a small business would be thrilled just to be included in making the scene as authentically LA as possible but the owner of the donut shop had hoped Iron Man could fly through the giant donut's hole courtesy of special effects.

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Alas, Iron Man does little more than annoy Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury in the iconic scene.

Favreau said:

"I didn't want something that felt forced. I wanted something that was really LA, and I thought they'd be thrilled. So, you know, we got there, and I'm talking to the owner, Randy, and he says, 'Yeah, well, you know I'd really like if he flies through the donut.' Wow. Really? But that's how it is though, right?"Disney

11. Loki's death scene in Thor: The Dark World (2013) was originally intended to be real!

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Tom Hiddleson explained in an interview with Empire that test audiences refused to accept or believe it!

Tom said:

"It was part of the original pitch and in test screenings, the audience didn't accept it. They said, you know 'He's obviously coming back. That didn't really happen.' And there was a very strange and almost unanimous resistance to it. They decided that wasn't the end."Pinterest

Director Alan Taylor revealed that the film underwent tons of re-shoots and The Dark World turned into a "different movie during post-production."

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The end scene revealing that Loki played a trick on Thor, (and that he finally got his wish to sit on the throne,) was added during those reshoots.

Was (or is) Loki just the best villain in the whole MCU or did Marvel just do that good of a job portraying Hiddleston's Loki as a "lover" of high-stakes pranks? Either way, we got a lot more Loki in the MCU thanks to those test audiences living in denial, and Thor: Ragnarok is easily one of the best movies in the whole MCU!

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12. Chris Pratt persistently pitched a "joke" to be included in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 to director James Gunn. Gunn had to repeatedly, being polite but firm, deny the suggestion.

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Pratt told io9 in an interview his idea about an interaction between his character (Peter Quill) and Quill's father, Ego, who is played by the famous actor Kurt Russell:

"Peter Quill would know who Kurt Russell is. So we had to create the world where Kurt Russell is not one of his icons the way he actually would have been. All these amazing stars of television and film of that era are the icons of Peter Quill’s ideology he’s created around what Earth was."Disney

He continued:

"I kept pitching James the idea, ‘Should I know that that’s Kurt Russell?’ He’s like, ‘Just trust me. Don’t.’”Disney

Can we really blame Chris Pratt for wanting to pull a Deadpool and break the fourth wall? Nah. Are we glad that James Gunn decided to stick to his guns? Yes.

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13. Director of Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi wanted to include a flashback to Thor and Loki's (extremely awkward) childhoods.

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On Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Waititi explained that it had to be cut during developement for becoming "pointless," but his description will leave us forever knowing we missed out on something incredible:

"I wanted to do some flashbacks where Thor was a kid, a fat little kid. There was like an 80s version of Asgard where everyone had massive shoulder pads, and everyone had mullets (laughs). Our idea was Thor and Valkyrie meet and he’s like, ‘Hey I know you,’ and she’s like ‘Ha I remember you,’ and then it cuts back to this thing and he’s just this pudgy little kid walking around with a mullet and being picked on by other kids. And Loki’s like this little emo goth hanging out by himself. He was like the kid in Harry Potter, [Malfoy].”Disney

Alas, the scene wasn't even shot. Taika revealed:

“The problem was we needed him to not know Valkyire in the film and stuff. And then it became less and less of a thing to have a flashback. We would’ve been forcing it, so it would’ve been a situation where we would have been having a pointless flashback.”Disney

14. When Paul Rudd played Ant-Man in 2015, his own son was definitely not his biggest fan.

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In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Rudd explained:

"When I told my own son that I was going to be in a superhero movie, he asked me what it was, and I said I was going to be playing Ant-Man, and he was not impressed. What he actually said was, 'I can't wait to see how stupid that'll be.' Swear to God, that's what he said."Tenor

I think we can all come together to hope that Rudd's son changed his mind after checking out the final product. After all, the movie was hysterical and it's sequel did well, too!

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At least the MCU left a fantastic taste in our mouth over the years, we certainly can't keep ourselves from yearning for more. Can we? We cannot.

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We look forward to everything we'll continue to learn about the MCU.

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Did you end up learning any fun facts from behind-the-scenes this time? All the movies, shows, shorts, and bloopers contain an incredible array of talented actors so it's actually not surprising that there's so much to enjoy, even when it comes to interviews with the cast and crew of the MCU.

Want to check out a whole bunch of unscripted moments that made it to the final cut of Marvel movies? Or perhaps you're more in the mood for hilarious but spot-on satire about the MCU?

We always have you covered. Let us know what you think in the comments!