Female crew members convinced ‘Avengers: Endgame’ writers to kill Black Widow

The death of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was arguably the most shocking moment in Avengers: Endgame, especially because her solo film will eventually follow the highest grossing blockbuster of all time.

Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have opened up about making the decision to kill Black Widow instead of Hawkeye, revealing that they actually shot an alternative sequence where Jeremy Renner’s character is sacrificed for the Soul Stone instead.

McFeely has now admitted that it was the intervention of a number of female Avengers: Endgame crew members that ultimately convinced the pair to kill Black Widow instead of Hawkeye.

Read more: Marvel’s ‘Infinity Saga’ features alternate movie endings

He told Vanity Fair, “A number of women on the crew, when we said, ‘Hey, we’re thinking maybe Hawkeye goes over,’ said, ‘Don’t you do that! Don’t rob her of this!’

“And then it choked me up because I think we would have a much different conversation if Hawkeye had pushed her aside.”

Both writers admitted that they are really “proud” of that scene and moment, especially because “it felt like it was the resolution of her arc, that if she could sacrifice herself for her new family and for half the universe, that was worth it to her.”

Read more: Brie Larson on the ‘all-female’ Marvel movie

And while they don’t have any major regrets over the sequence, McFeely’s admitted that his only gripe is that her death comes at the end of act two.

“So you can’t really roll around in the grief because we’ve got another hour of movie and we haven’t solved the A-plot problem. So that’s the downside.”

We’ll get much more time to grieve the passing of Black Widow when her solo adventure, which is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, is released on May 1, 2020.