Why Hugo Weaving Didn't Return As Red Skull for Infinity War

Original Red Skull actor, Hugo Weaving, explains why he didn't reprise his MCU role in Avengers: Infinity War. Debuting in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger, the actor played Steve Rogers' (Chris Evans) first antagonist. Formerly known as Johann Schmidt, the character transformed into the Red Skull after using an imperfect replica of the Super Soldier Serum. He is known to be the first to pursue an Infinity Stone (the Tesseract, which was later revealed as the Space Stone) in the universe in the official franchise canon thus far.

After mysteriously vanishing at the end of The First Avenger, fans didn't hear about the Red Skull for a while. That is, until it was revealed in Infinity War the Infinity Stone forced him to become the gatekeeper on Vormir, which was where Soul Stone was secretly hidden. Red Skull's reemergence was arguably one of the biggest surprises from the 2018 Joe and Anthony Russo film, but it was eventually revealed it wasn't Weaving playing the part. Instead, Marvel Studios tapped Ross Marquand to voice the character.

As it turns out, Weaving was willing to reprise the role - in fact, he wanted to do it because he loved bringing the character to life in The First Avenger. Unfortunately, dealing with Marvel Studios regarding contracts proved to be "impossible for his camp." So, while he wanted to play Red Skull again, he kind of lost interest because of his difficult dealings with the studio as he tells Yahoo! in a new interview:

Red Skull and Soul Stone in Avengers Infinity War

"Oh, yeah. I loved playing that character Red Skull - it was a lot of fun. We were all obliged to sign up for three pictures: I was thinking [Red Skull] probably wouldn’t come back in Captain America but he may well come back as a villain in The Avengers. By then, they’d pushed back on the contracts that we agreed on and so the money they offered me for The Avengers was much less than I got for the very first one, and this was for two films. And the promise when we first signed the contracts was that the money would grow each time. They said: ‘It’s just a voice job, it’s not a big deal.’ I actually found negotiating with them through my agent impossible. And I didn’t really wanna do it that much. But I would have done it."

Red Skull made another appearance in Avengers: Endgame after Earth's Mightiest Heroes hatched a plan to collect all six Infinity Stones before Thanos (Josh Brolin) got his hands on them. Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) journeyed to the remote planet to get the Soul Stone, which resulted in the death of the latter. After the defeat of the Mad Titan, Captain America was tasked to return all elemental crystals to their original locations so as to not create a string of alternate realities. This means Captain America could've encountered Red Skull when returning the Soul Stone - something that has been a favorite topic of conversation among fans.

It's sad that Weaving wasn't able to return in the MCU due to contract negotiations. While Marquand brilliantly played the Red Skull as well, it would've been nice to see more Phase 1 actors brought back for the Avengers sequels. From the looks of it, the issue here stemmed from Marvel Studios' change in plans. As usual with their talent, Weaving was contracted for three films, but since his role in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame would've been significantly reduced compared to his outing in The First Avenger, the studio adjusted accordingly. It's difficult to gauge what truly happened since chances are Kevin Feige and his team will not address this matter so as not to make a big deal out of it.

More: Why Captain America Doesn’t Say “Avengers Assemble” Until Endgame

Source: Yahoo!