Clint Barton and Avengers: Infinity War are two Marvel-related entities that are mutually exclusive, that much we know, but was Jeremy Renner’s sharpshooter ever considered for the super-sized blockbuster?
That was the question posed to Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the screenwriters responsible for Infinity War and Avengers 4, who told Collider that, no, Hawkeye was never a part of the third Avengers film, as his own personal story arc has been reserved for next year.
So whereas Joe and Anthony Russo initially filmed scenes with Captain Marvel, the creative duo never once approached Jeremy Renner about a potential role, as Markus and McFeely explained to Collider:
McFeely: No.
Markus: I’m just thinking back to long-ago drafts. I mean, everything has happened in drafts: we’ll roll everybody out and road test them.
And again, that largely comes down to the fact that Hawkeye has much more to do during Avengers 4 – ditto for Captain America and Black Widow – as Stephen McFeely elaborated further in the interview:
We’ve said this before: the idea that some characters have great stories in the second movie. And we also gave ourselves permission to use both movies to tell complete arcs for the characters. And that might mean that somebody like Cap or Natasha you might feel like, ‘Oh, they didn’t have as much to do as say Thor or Doctor Strange, and that surprises me.’ It’s likely because they have a lot to do in the next one.
Could that spell a transformation into Ronin? Who knows. As for why Hawkeye was left out of the picture entirely, McFeely concluded by pointing to Infinity War‘s structure, and how it was built around Thanos and his quest to acquire all six Infinity Stones.
Once it became sort of a smash-and-grab type movie, anything that wasn’t involved in the main A-plot in response to Thanos collecting stones, mostly got jettisoned.
Elsewhere on the Infinity War news cycle, we’ve caught wind that early drafts of the Marvel tentpole killed fewer characters, while McFeely and Markus recently explained to Collider why the likes Daredevil and Jessica Jones remained on the sidelines, even when Thanos brought the war to New York City.