Fans have long noticed Jeremy Renner’s absence from the marketing for Avengers: Infinity War, and now even its stars are poking fun at that fact.
At a red carpet event in Mariana Bay Sands Singapore, Robert Downey Jr. (who plays Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) “revealed” to the crowd that only Renner’s character, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, can defeat Thanos, the main villain of the film.
Joe Russo, who co-directed the project along with his brother Anthony, waved that aside with a far more important spoiler: Hawkeye actually IS Thanos!
The crowd, thankfully, seems to realize that all of this was a good-natured gag, though it is sure to only whet excitement about finding out what the truth actually is.
Renner’s Hawkeye, meanwhile, is the sixth Avenger, joining the team along with his old colleague, Black Widow, in 2012’s The Avengers. Admittedly, he does not have his own movie series and his “power” is just that he is good with a bow and arrow, so he is fairly easy to poke fun of. That said, he is a major character, so why has he not appeared in any of the marketing images? In fact, his name wasn’t even on the movie poster! (In contrast, Peter Dinklage’s was, and his inclusion was a surprise for most fans.)
Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination to everything that the MCU has done until now. Featuring an astounding eighty named characters, it brings together just about every living hero in the franchise, all to battle the Mad Titan Thanos (actually played by Josh Brolin, not Renner) when he finally comes to Earth to try and collect the six Infinity Stones. When added to his Gauntlet, they will make him nearly all-powerful.
It was filmed back-to-back with the yet-unnamed “Avengers 4“; the Russo brothers have described the movies as a single “long play” that must both be seen to understand. Some believe that Renner’s part is thus mostly or completely in the second part, or that Marvel Studios has some particular purpose to de-emphasize him for now, as part of their overall plan.
Many fans expect Hawkeye to die. Someone probably has to. But then, he’d need to show up for that.
Avengers: Infinity War comes out on April 27, 2018. Its sequel comes out May 3, 2019.
