Ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was given something of a finale last year with the epic Avengers: Endgame, a movie that served as both a celebration and wrap up for several of the franchise's staple characters. One of the biggest surprises in the movie was the return of Captain America's arch-enemy, the Red Skull, but something seemed different about him.

We would later learn that this was due to the Skull's original actor, Hugo Weaving, not returning to the role, something which Weaving blames on Marvel.

"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."

So, it sounds like while Weaving certainly had a good time putting on the red makeup, speaking in a thick German accent and dodging Cap's shield, he found working with Marvel Studios on the contracts rather difficult. It seems that Weaving's original contract with Marvel guaranteed him more money for return appearances, but that Marvel wanted to back out of this and renegotiate, with the two sides obviously failing to come to an agreement.

As was the case in the beginning of the MCU, all of the actors were signed on to three picture deals without necessarily a concrete idea of where the characters would reappear in the future. Thus, the idea to bring the character back did not emerge until later, at which time Marvel evidently did not want to honour the original deal, feeling that as Red Skull would only be a supporting character that they could pay Weaving a little bit less.

While it is a shame that a deal could not be reached, actor Ross Marquand did a fine job of resurrecting the Red Skull for both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Regardless. It is doubtful that Marvel shed too many tears over it, as both Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame both grossed billions, and the MCU continues to successfully tick on, with the solo Black Widow movie and The Eternals both due for release this year. This comes to us courtesy of Yahoo.com.