Back in November we ran the story ‘Avenger’s Hawkeye Played By Hurt Locker’s Renner?’ Hopefully you took note of the question mark because this news was indeed a rumor. Jeremy Renner told Empire, “I met with the Marvel guys, actually, but we didn’t talk about Captain America. But one of the writers, Zak Penn, we’ve become friends over time and he was thinking maybe Hawkeye could be interesting. He sounds like an interesting character.” This will be Renner’s first lesson in the Internet’s anxiousness to inflate and spread bogus news like wildfire.

More recently, Renner told Movieline:

That was just one of those things that got blown way out of proportion. It was an idea. Those Marvel guys, I’m a big fan of them. They’re so smart about how they want to do these things … So they thought Hawkeye is an interesting role, and asked me if I knew anything about him. I said no, so they gave me their sort of spiel on what he was, and I thought that it was kind of interesting. The only reason it came out this early, because Avengers is two years away, is that they’re thinking OK, we may throw him in Thor, we may not, as a cameo. You know what I mean? So there’s truth that we talked about it, but there’s no truth to me doing it.

This is a shame because Renner and Hawkeye could have been a great match. Slash Film brings up the point that this could be a falsified follow-up and, sometime soon, word will officially get out that Renner is indeed donning the purple tights. While I don’t like being fooled, I’d let it slide if it means Renner has the role.