With a run time of 160 minutes or two hours 40 minutes, Avengers: Infinity War is the longest Marvel movie ever released. The film brought together almost all the popular Marvel Cinematic Universe characters on the big screen. Despite the fact that Thanos got the maximum screen time in the film, the Mad Titan’s backstory wasn’t explained in Infinity War.

Now, if a new rumor is to be believed, the filmmakers are planning to roll out Avengers: Infinity War special edition that will likely include around 30 minutes of footage featuring Thanos’ backstory.

Collider’s Jon Schnepp recently moderated a panel with comic book writer, Jim Starlin, whose credits include writing Infinity Gauntlet and creating characters like Thanos and Gamora. Notably, Starlin’s comic book titled Infinity Gauntlet was the source of Avengers: Infinity War’s storyline.

According to Schnepp, Starlin confirmed to him that Infinity War directors Anthony and Joe Russo had actually shot almost 30 minutes of completed footage of the Thanos’s backstory for their film. But, they decided not to include the same in the final film due to the timing issue.

“[Some time] before the movie actually came out, they called him and were like ‘Hey, look. We’re sorry to tell you, we have to cut out a lot of the Thanos backstory.'” Schnepp explained. “‘We’re cutting out like thirty minutes of Thanos’ backstory, his origin, and him as a youth and things that he did. We can’t fit all of it into the movie. We already have like a two-and-a-half hour film.”

Starlin also told Schnepp that the Russo brothers are planning to add the already shot Thanos scenes into an extended edition of the film. He added that the 30-minute footage will not be added as deleted scenes, but, it will be reintegrated into the actual film to make a special edition.

“It’s completed, and Jim Starlin said he found out that they’re actually going to put it into a special edition of Avengers: Infinity War,” Schnepp revealed. “…The way he was saying it is there weren’t going to be seen as deleted scenes, they were actually going to be reintegrated into the film to make a special edition. So that’s what Jim said. I’m not 100% sure, I’d love to know from Marvel or Kevin Feige or the Russos.”

It’s better to take this information with a pinch of salt as Schnepp himself is not 100 percent sure of the details until it comes officially from Marvel or Kevin Feige or the Russo brothers.

Avengers: Infinity War is currently running in theatres near you.

Would you like to see the deleted Thanos footage as a special edition? Let us know in comments below.

Source: Collider