Check out the alternate version of Black Widow’s death in Avengers: Endgame

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

As with most massive blockbusters, there are plenty of deleted or alternate moments from AVENGERS: ENDGAME which didn't make the final cut, and one of the major scenes which was reshot was the death of Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson). The theatrical cut found Black Widow sacrificing her life on Vormir in order to retrieve the Soul Stone, but not before tussling with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) over who would get to make the sacrifice. Originally, the scene was much more action-packed, with Black Widow and Hawkeye battling Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his henchmen as a mortally-wounded Black Widow made a slow-motion leap from the cliff.

If you've got Disney+, chances are that you've already seen this particular clip, but if not, here's the alternate version of Black Widow's death in AVENGERS: ENDGAME for your viewing pleasure.

Certainly quite different, not to mention a little more gruesome for poor Black Widow. While speaking with Inverse, AVENGERS: ENDGAME co-director Anthony Russo explained why they decided to reshot the sequence. "That was another example where we began to smell this as we were executing it and confirmed it once we started to focus more on editing this," Russo said. "We wanted to make it Black Widow’s final test with Hawkeye, a character who she’s been so close to, but the cuts all of a sudden became between them and a bunch of Thanos’ minions, who we didn’t have any relationship with." Anthony Russo said that they became discussing reshooting the scene while in post-production with their editor, Jeff Ford. "We started spitballing: Isn’t the best version of this scene Hawkeye versus black widow?" Russo continued. "We have two heroes, neither of whom is gonna let the other die? They both know they have a mission that involves one of them sacrificing themselves and these characters had such a rich relationship throughout the MCU. So why don’t we just make the conflict between these two characters?"

BLACK WIDOW was slated to hit theaters next month, but was pushed back to November 6, 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.