These Marvel Movie Moments Were Unscripted Accidents That Just Worked Perfectly

Happy, little Marvel accidents that ended up working just right

Elana

• Published in Disney
• November 25, 2019

The Marvel Cinematic Universe that kicked off over a decade ago has been filled to the brim with quality talent, including some of the best actors of our current times. We've met so much talent along the way and grown so attached to these actors and actresses playing these iconic comic book characters, it's not surprising to see how many of us just cannot get enough.

One of the qualities that makes the talent of Marvel so impressive is how perfectly they fit into their character rolls... so much so that there's been an awful lot of times where an unscripted moment made it into the movies! Here are the best of the best, you might be surprised to learn what lines were NOT planned! If you haven't seen some of the latest movies, there are spoilers in this story!

The Snake Story

The story that Thor shared in Thor: Ragnarok was completely made up on the spot by Chris Hemsworth. In fact, he created six different stories and the snake story was the one that "stuck." Director Taika Waititi revealed another one of the stories:

In this one say: 'I was walking through a field, and I saw a lovely Turkish rug in the middle of the grass, and I love Turkish rugs, so I went to stand on it, and it was Loki and he turned back into Loki and there was a hole and I fell through the hole and was impaled on a whole lot of spikes.

Robert Downey Jr. improvised the "please be a secret door, please be a secret door" line right before the secret door opened.

Avengers: Age of Ultron was full of gems, but RDJ's improvised line and the improvised, "yay" afterwards are iconic.

Touchy-Touchy

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Haley Atwell was not scripted to reach out to touch Chris Evan's impressive pecs. It was an instinctual move on her part, upon seeing him shirtless. Haley revealed:

"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."

...And literally no one on earth could blame her, right?

Get Help!

In Thor: Ragnarok, the entire "get help" gag was concocted by Chris Hemsworth. There were many times that scenes in the movie were shot more than once with different stories and scenarios because the director wanted to "showcase" Hemsworth comedic talents. "He encouraged improvisation from his stars and was happy to shoot loads of versions of each scenes to tease out the comedy – and in the 'Get Help' scene it definitely did the trick," director Taika Waititi said.

Big Hugs

In Spider-Man: Homecoming, the hug scene between Tony Stark and Peter Parker was totally improvised by Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland.

Tom Holland said that he simply thought it'd be funny to try to hug RDJ during the scene, "and Robert's instincts are so good that he was like, 'Oh, I'm not trying to hug you. I'm just trying to get the door.' And then when we did it you heard all the producers laugh."

Quit monkey-ing around.

In Black Panther, it was Winston Duke's decision to grunt in order to assert his character's sense of power when Martin Freeman's character tried to step in during the scene. Director Ryan Coogler said in the DVD commentary that he found the ad-lib moment of M'Baku's character to be perfect. Coogler said the character of Ross was "very powerful where he's from, so there's this idea to kind of get in there and talk and mix it up, but this was M'Baku's way to say 'nah, I'm not talking to you right now.'"

Naked Alien

In Captain Marvel, Samuel L. Jackson was not scripted to lift the cloth over Skrull to peak at the naked alien. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the film's directors, spoke about this scene in the DVD directors' commentary. Fleck said, "He just did this, and we kept it in because we thought it was pretty funny."

"Bitch, PLEASE."

In Spiderman: Far From Home, when Peter Parker says he's "just the neighborhood Spiderman," Samuel L. Jackson improvised his response, "Bitch, please, you've been to space."

Salutations

In Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan was not scripted to say, "hey auntie," in the moment he saw Angela Basset's character for the first time.

Sharing is Caring.

While filming The Avengers, Robert Downey Jr. was known to hide snacks around the sets, you know, just in case he got hungry while filming. The scene where he offered Captain America (Chris Evans,) some blueberries was improvised while RDJ was fulfilling his snack attack. Evans and Ruffalo played along so well that they decided to keep it in the film.

War Chants

In Avengers: Infinity War, some of the war chants were unscripted. Winston Duke and some of the other cast members simply started chanting some of the words from Black Panther! The films were shot at the same time in Atlanta but the Russo brothers were shocked when Winston Duke (M'Baku) randomly led a war chant during a scene.

Of course, they absolutely loved it and kept it in the movie, and went on to say it "led to the responding war cry that T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) leads... A year ahead of time, we had no idea 'Wakanda forever!' was going to be amazing."

Breaking Character? Enhancing the film.

In Captain America: Civil War, there is a scene where Stark visits Parker. Tom Holland forgot his blocking, and Robert Downey Jr. didn't skip a beat. This tidbit was revealed in the movie's DVD commentary: “This line right here about the leg. Tom forgot the blocking of the scene and of course that’s Robert staying in character, telling him, 'You’re supposed to move now so I can sit on the bed.' Not only does he use it, but he uses it in a way that’s really entertaining and fun. That’s such a dexterous and inventive move on an actor’s part."

A little humor goes a long way.

It was in between filming scenes on Thor: The Darkworld, when Hemsworth was playing with Thor's hammer and decided to hang it up as a joke. Kevin Feige admitted that they wanted to bring a lot of Chris Hemsworth's natural humor into the character and scenes when filming The Darkworld: “With this movie, Taika takes a little page out of the little moments in the other Thor films where Hemsworth is funny, like his improv of hanging his hammer on a coat hook in The Dark World.”

We know each other!

Thor: Ragnarok featured a lot of improvised lines but the secret behind the line, "he's a friend from work" is totally endearing. A child from Make A Wish was visiting the set and came up with the line that everyone decided they loved. In an interview, Hemsworth said: “We had a young kid, a Make-A-Wish kid on set that day. He goes, ‘You know, you should say, ‘He’s a friend from work!'”

I, too, love coffee.

When Thor tried coffee for the first time, his demand for another while smashing the cup on the floor was improvised by Chris Hemsworth. Apparently, the president of Marvel studios just really liked the unscripted moment and the particularly priceless reactions of the actors around him.

Gamora

The "why is Gamora" line was improvised by actor Dave Bautista in Avengers: Infinity War. The script was supposed to end with Robert Downey Jr.'s line, but Bautista, who played Drax, randomly added "I'll do you one better: Why is Gamora?"

Screenwriter Chirstoper Markus replied: "OK, you’re very good at your job."

He's got jokes!

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jeremy Renner's famous lines were totally unscripted. Renner was just joking after the scene ended and didn't realize the cameras were still rolling. It was epic, and they kept it.

The Last Line

Tony Stark's final line, "and I am Iron Man," was added in later. Originally, there was no line after Thanos said, "I am inevitable." However, the silence didn't feel right. The Russo brothers credited Jeff Ford, the film's editor, with coming up with the idea of having Tony Stark repeat his iconic line. In an interview they said: "Get the cameras! We have to shoot this tomorrow."

Tony Stark's ENTIRE Death Scene

In an interview, Tom Holland revealed that only a couple people were on set to film Tony Stark's death scene: Kevin Feige (Marvel's president), the Russo brothers (the directors), Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr., and himself.

The four cast members just showed up and were given a few pointers about what was going on. Tom Holland said it was a "really, really interesting way to shoot such a pivotal scene in the movie."

Queen Bee

Benedict Cumberbatch unwittingly threw a witty joke in Wong's direction during Doctor Strange when he called him Beyonce. Benedict Wong confirmed that it was improvised.

In the scene, Wong said he had never heard of Beyonce. So, in the next scene, Wong is listening to Beyonce... for research.

Last, but certainly not least:

In Avengers: Infinity War, Tom Holland improvised his final lines before turning to dust. Joe Russo, a co-director on the film, told Tom Holland to “act like you don’t want to go," so that's exactly what Tom did. And everyone cried.

Elana