Why We Didn't End Up Seeing a Cameo From Iron Man or Hawkeye in BLACK WIDOW

Fans had a good long time to wait around and speculate about what we would see in the film Black Widow. It was scheduled to be released last year amid the beginning of the pandemic, but it saw one pushback after another, and we finally got to see it over a year later. While we waited, fans threw out ideas of Taskmaster’s identity, as well as who, if any, of the Avengers would be showing up to make cameos in the film.

The two top contenders for who we thought we might see were Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton/Hawkeye. Barton and Natasha/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) had made reference to their time in Budapest together in other films, so this felt like a natural assumption, and I think fans just knew Tony was still alive during this time, and with his being the leader of the Avengers, they were hopeful we might see him again, even if it were just to feed into Captain America: Civil War.

But in the end, the film focused only on Natasha and her “family,” and the film’s writer and director each spoke out to explain why.

In a recent interview with CB’s Phase Zero podcast, writer Eric Pearson explained the confusion surrounding the Iron Man rumors, saying:

“I feel bad for the person who asked me this the other day because I said ‘there was never any discussion,’ but I do remember now that one version of the script prior to me literally had written into it ‘The end moment of Civil War with Tony and Natasha,’ but it was old footage. It would have been, ‘Hey audience, remember where we are, we’re going to key off of this moment of her.'”

He went on to add:

“I remember when those rumors came out I was in London in our War Room office and I just looked around and was like ‘Are we? Am I supposed to be? I have the script right here, Tony Stark’s not in it.’ Everyone was like ‘No, no.’…I don’t know where it came from unless somebody got a very old version with this kind of scene, which wasn’t even a new scene. I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from.”

It makes sense why they didn’t just throw that in. Everyone knows what happened next, and the scene may have just stolen focus from the film. As far as why we didn’t see Hawkeye either, the film’s director Cate Shortland explained to Total Film:

“Initially, there was discussions about everything, about all of the different characters. What we decided was, and I think [Marvel Studios boss] Kevin [Feige] was really great, he said, ‘She doesn’t need the boys.’ We didn’t want it to feel like she needs the support. We want her to stand alone. And she does.”

It would have been a little more sensical to integrate Hawkeye rather than Iron Man, but it also makes total sense that if Clint were trying to lie low, he would not have gone to hang out with another Avenger. The film ended up being really good, and Natasha did stand on her own, while highlighting the star power of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova.

Would you have liked to have seen Iron Man or Hawkeye make an appearance in the film?