Avengers: Endgame already swings for the fences, especially when it comes to endings, but Hawkeye actor Jeremy Renner says one of the movie’s heaviest moments almost went even bigger. According to the star, Natasha Romanoff’s sacrifice on Vormir was first conceived and shot as a large-scale, “galactic” skirmish until changes had to be made. And, in a recent interview, the man behind Hawkeye explains why he’s glad they made the change.
Renner shared the behind-the-scenes nugget during a Space Con 2025 panel (via Popverse), saying that before Marvel reshot the sequence into the intimate, two-friends-on-a-cliff goodbye fans know, they planned for a whole lot more alien action. He explained:
We shot the scene, but that scene is not in the movie. It’s a very different scene. There’s much more galactic and more aliens and there’s a lot more stuff going on. And then we reshot it to make it much simpler to the scene that’s in the movie now.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Marvel has flirted with an action-heavy Vormir cut before. When Endgame hit home release and later streaming for fans with a Disney+ subscription, viewers saw an alternate sequence where Thanos’ forces crash the party and Black Widow sprints through blaster fire before making the soul-for-a-soul leap. It’s cool, chaotic, and very MCU—but it also trades quiet devastation for spectacle. That version has circulated in special features and coverage since 2019–2020.
Renner says the simpler approach landed the emotional beat the filmmakers were chasing. He continued:
There’s much more emotional, much more impactful, I think. It’s more heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking to do that scene. It was a celebration also. It’s like saying goodbye to somebody. There was 22 films before this that made this scene happen. I think it’s one of Scarlett’s last scenes anyway. It was a pretty emotional time, a lot of years had gone by, and shared stories, and life shared. It was real enough for us to feel it.
That tracks with how the Russos and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have talked about Endgame’s biggest deaths: when the movie goes quiet, it goes for the jugular. The theatrical Vormir sequence narrows to two friends wrestling—literally—over who gets to make the sacrifice play. No armies. No cavalry. Just Natasha and Clint, a final nod to the smallest-scale bond in Earth’s Mightiest roster.
It’s been a minute since longtime fans of all the Marvel movies have seen Jeremy Renner suit up as Clint. His last on-screen appearance was the Hawkeye series finale on December 22, 2021, which has fueled speculation about a surprise return in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. Don’t ask the Mayor of Kingstown star for spoilers, though. As he joked to Brie Larson when pressed about a cameo: “No, girl.” Then again, in a universe where Andrew Garfield-level denials are part of the game, never say never.
If Jeremy Renner never returns (which feels unlikely), his legacy is secure. Moments like Natasha’s sacrifice on Vormir rank among the MCU’s most powerful—thanks in part to the Russo brothers knowing when to dial down the spectacle and let intimacy carry the scene.
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