Marvel surprised everyone this morning by dropping an alternate version of the Black Widow death from Avengers: Endgame. The scene went through dramatic changes before arriving at the theatrical cut.
This scene appears to be the original scene, and it features a battle that doesn’t make the final cut of the film. In the cut scene, Hawkeye and and Black Widow are on Vormir fighting Thanos and his army.
Natasha takes a number of blaster shots, and sacrifices herself in order for Clint to obtain the Soul Stone. The scene is a fantastic one, and almost holds more emotional weight than the scene in the final cut of the film.
Check out the original scene below:
The Russo Brothers went with a version of the scene that housed less action, and made Natasha’s sacrifice more of a personal choice rather than out of necessity.
Scriptwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus revealed that they wanted Hawkeye to die in the scene instead of Natasha. According to McFeely, a ‘number of women on the crew’ told them “Don’t rob her of this”.
It made more sense in the film for Natasha to die rather than Clint anyway, because his family comes back when the snap’s undone. Also, With her being shot a few times, it takes away from the weight of her sacrifice.
It does change the dynamic of the scene from the theatrical version. Basically, Hawkeye and Widow are almost playing the scene for laughs in the theatrical cut.
