Let the fan theories roll: An alternate Infinity War script had a scene where Loki survived

Of the numerous fake scripts produced for Avengers: Infinity War, one of them involved a scene where Loki survived before even getting to Thanos.

By now, it’s no secret just how secretive the Russo brothers wanted to be about keeping Infinity War’s plot on lock. Actor upon actor during interviews for Infinity War revealed that they had received countless fake scripts to keep the real plot of the movie a secret.

Those scripts were basically like Doctor Strange’s 14 million scenarios vision, where each scene had a different outcome. Most of these fake outcomes haven’t been revealed yet, but now we know one scene involved something fans would have been very content to see on screen: Loki surviving.

According to Screen Rant, in the book The Art of Avengers: Infinity War, a certain passage details the scenario of everyone’s dream. Of course, the footage didn’t make the cut because, well, it wasn’t supposed to make the cut. But executive producer Trinh Tran revealed just how the fake scene went down anyway:

"We created a version of the script where Loki would get away in an escape pod at the beginning of the movie. When we started shooting that particular sequence, we had crew members who were thoroughly confused. We had to let them know that those were fake versions of the script that they read."

The real question is: who were they filming the fake scene for? Was it for set workers whose friends and family might be privy to what that person saw on set each day? Was it for Mark Ruffalo, where anybody might be privy to secret plot points if they just ask him?

Whatever the case is, the scene was filmed to confuse some people, but it didn’t fool everyone. Before Infinity War even came out, I vividly recall seeing rumors around the internet that confidently predicted Loki was going to die in the first 10 minutes of the film. And as someone who direly hoped that didn’t happen, I was watching the opening scene of the film with my fingers crossed, but still expecting the worst.

So it seems like the Russos’ smoke and mirror tricks didn’t all work out the way they were supposed to. But here’s another question: Were the cameras even rolling during that scene? And if so, is that footage of Loki escaping the ship still out there? Because we’re thinking there needs to be a director’s cut of this movie ASAP, where Loki goes to the escape pod, and everything is A-okay for the rest of the movie.

Regardless of the fake scene, Tom Hiddleston has been giving us some mixed signals here when it comes to Loki’s death being solidified. At Ace Comic Con in Seattle this summer, he revealed that he had known about Loki’s death in Infinity War while he was making Thor: Ragnarok in 2016. But when asked if his character was actually dead at a later Ace Comic Con in Chicago just last month, he offered a much more vague answer. So really, there’s no clear answer on Loki’s fate as of now.

Don’t get your pitchforks out just yet, Loki fandom. There’s still that tiny ounce of hope to have that he might not be so dead after all in Avengers 4. But if not, we demand to see that alternative scene.