SALT LAKE CITY — “Avengers: Endgame” fans now have an answer as to why Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) never appeared in “Avengers: Infinity War.”
“Avengers: Infinity War” screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, along with “Endgame” directors Joe and Anthony Russo, recently opened up about their decision to leave Hawkeye out of the film during the commentary track for “Avengers: Endgame.”
Joe Russo said the opening scene of “Avengers: Endgame” — where Hawkeye watches his family disappear into ashes following the Thanos Snap — was supposed to take place at the end of “Infinity War,” according to ComicBook.com,
- “We thought it might be interesting to cut to a verite scene between Hawkeye and his family. I believe we tried it one cut of the film, and looked at it and said ‘Oh, that’s never gonna work. It’s too disorienting,’” he said.
McFeely, Marcus and the Russos agreed that the ending of “Infinity War” was already pretty busy with scenes taking place in Wakanda, Titan and Earth, according to ComicBook.com. But the group decided to add the scene to the beginning of “Endgame” because it would have such a devastating impact.
- “It brings you back emotionally very quickly. There’s a year between these films, and this movie helps to reset, and re-remind the audience of what happened in that movie and how you felt at the end of that film,” Joe Russo said.
Flashback: Leading up to the release of “Infinity War,” fans were worried about Hawkeye’s fate because, as I wrote for the Deseret News, Hawkeye was missing from several of the film’s posters. In fact, fans created their own “Infinity War” posters with Hawkeye.
The Russo Brothers said at the time that Hawkeye would appear in “Infinity War,” according to Collider.
“Coming out of ‘Civil War,’ he’s in the same position that Cap and Falcon are at the end of that movie,” Joe Russo said. “And Ant-Man. And coming into this movie you know … the characters on Cap’s side coming out of the Civil War, some made certain decisions and others made other decisions that led to different paths in them dealing with oversight in this movie in a different way. So Hawkeye’s on his own journey in this movie.”