Avengers: Endgame Writer Tried a Version Where Hawkeye Made the Soul Stone Sacrifice, but Female Colleagues Convinced Him Who It Needed Be

A version of Avengers: Endgame featured another hero making the Soul Stone sacrifice, until writer Stephen McFeely was convinced against this by female Marvel colleagues.

Warning! Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame follow...

Endgame features the sad death of founding Avenger Natasha Romanov, AKA Black Widow, who makes the ultimate sacrifice to ensure Hawkeye obtains the Soul Stone. But the movie's co-writer has admitted hesitating over killing Scarlett Johansson's character, with Hawkeye briefly in the frame to die instead.

During a post-Avengers: Endgame Encore screening Q&A in Minnesota this past weekend (thanks, Forbes), Avengers scribe Stephen McFeely said he had tried writing a draft of this sequence where Hawkeye perished — only for this version to be met with resistance from multiple women on the Marvel team.

"There was a sense of dread over the decision," McFeely began, discussing the early realization that Endgame's return to Vormir would mean a big death was necessary. …