Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for the series premiere of Loki.
In the opening minutes of Marvel Studios' latest, sure-to-be-a-hit streaming series Loki, audiences flash back to the events of 2019's Avengers: Endgame which has in turn flashed back to the Chitauri invasion in 2012 seen in the first Avengers film, through the use of time travel.
As seen in Endgame, having just begun their self-titled Time Heist, the Avengers have traveled back to various points and locations in time in order to collect the six Infinity Stones and undo Thanos' culling of half of life in the universe. Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Scott Lang go to Stark Tower, circa 2012 in an attempt to nab the Space and Mind Stones which were present there at the time.
One thing leads to another and Loki ends up absconding with the Space Stone and promptly uses it to escape, at which point he is apprehended by the TVA, spawning the storyline of his eponymous Disney+ series.
SOMETHING MIGHT BE AMISS AT STARK TOWER
In those aforementioned opening scenes of Loki, the God of Mischief uses his magic to shape shift into Steve Rogers' Captain America in order to mock the Star-Spangled Avenger.
"On my way down to coordinate search and rescue."
As one can plainly see, the scene from Loki contains a tight shot on the Asgardian trickster while he's shape-shifted into Steve, while in the same moment from Endgame, a wider shot is seen, with other characters such as Thor being visible.
Loki director Kate Herron has shed a glimmer of light on this topic. According to Insider, Herron described the sequence as "fun hybrid" of old, new and unused footage, saying that Loki's VFX teams "re-tailored" the previously scrapped takes from Avengers: Endgame.
COULD LOKI CONTAIN A HIDDEN CHRIS EVANS CAMEO?
So, how exactly was this close-up on Loki's mocking Captain America "re-tailored"? Well, there are a few explanations.
The most likely one being that this is simply unused footage from Endgame's b-roll that was left on the cutting room floor.
Another possible line of reasoning could be that digital face replacement was used on a Chris Evans body double. This technology was used during production on Iron Man 3 when star Robert Downey Jr. injured his leg whilst filming, forcing the special effects team to digitally superimpose Downey's face onto a stand-in Tony Stark body. The whole process was quite seamless in the finished film, but to utilize this on Loki, Chris Evans would likely have had to get his face filmed with special technology.
Or, perhaps the production team literally had Evans come in for less than a day's worth of shooting to film a very quick cameo appearance. It seems unlikely, but Evans also reportedly did his cameo on Thor: The Dark World (which, incidentally, also involved Loki temporarily taking on the likeness of Steve Rogers) for free and was apparently quite willing to appear in that film, so this scenario would not be without precedent.
Loki streams Wednesdays only on Disney+ with the next episode airing June 16.
