The Marvel Cinematic Universe has several strong accomplishments during their decade-plus run, but perhaps the most impressive is their continuity. Aside from Terrance Howard departing from Iron Man 2 and Edward Norton leaving future Hulk projects (both occurred in the MCU’s infancy), Disney has successfully retained their core cast in over 20 films, including many high-profile talents. That success rate is part of what made the departure of Hugo Weaving as Red Skull a surprise for many Marvel fans.
While Weaving stayed mostly silent about his departure for several years, that changed in an interview with Yahoo. In the interview, Weaving discusses what made him leave the MCU, which mainly stems from a major decrease in pay.
“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.”
The logistics on both sides make a lot of sense. Weaving, an acclaimed actor of Matrix and Lord of the Rings fame, has too much pedigree to be taking cameo roles that offer little benefits. That being said, Marvel likely envisioned the actor having a bigger role in the MCU before deciding on their current arc, leaving them in a tough spot to honor their previous negotiations.
What do you think about Weaving’s departure from the MCU? Let me know in the comments!