The ending of “Avengers: Infinity War” was tough to watch. But the deaths of 2 major characters in “Avengers: Endgame” was just as tough to watch.
In speaking with The New York Times, co-writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus were asked straight up on why Scarlett Johansson’s character, Natasha Romanoff, had to die.
“Her journey, in our minds, had come to an end if she could get the Avengers back. She comes from such an abusive, terrible, mind-control background, so when she gets to Vormir and she has a chance to get the family back, that’s a thing she would trade for,” McFeely was quoted as saying.
He continued, “The toughest thing for us was we were always worried that people weren’t going to have time to be sad enough. The stakes are still out there and they haven’t solved the problem. But we lost a big character — a female character — how do we honour it? We have this male lens and it’s a lot of guys being sad that a woman died.”
Compared to Tony Stark’s big emotional send-off, many fans felt that Black Widow’s death was relatively downplayed. In response, Markus justified that it would be out of character for her to get a flashy funeral.
“Tony gets a funeral. Natasha doesn’t. That’s partly because Tony’s this massive public figure and she’s been a cipher the whole time. It wasn’t necessarily honest to the character to give her a funeral,” said Markus.
However, McFeely revealed that there was an early draft where Hawkeye sacrificed himself for the Soul Stone on Vormir instead of Nat. But the powers that be in Marvel Studios weren’t onboard with the idea.
“There was, for sure. Jen Underdahl, our visual effects producer, read an outline or draft where Hawkeye goes over. And she goes, ‘Don’t you take this away from her.’ I actually get emotional thinking about it,” McFeely recalled.
Markus agreed with Underdahl’s stance, arguing that killing off family man Clint Barton wouldn’t be right. “And it was true, it was him taking the hit for her. It was melodramatic to have him die and not get his family back. And it is only right and proper that she’s done,” he said.
On the bright side, we’ll still get to see ScarJo kick some ass in her own “Black Widow” solo movie. It’ll be a sequel on how “she defected from Russia and became a S.H.I.E.L.D. spy in the first place”.
Source: We Got This Covered.
