It’s been a minute since we’ve seen Jeremy Renner playing Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, in the MCU, and there’s still no word on if he’ll reprise the role in upcoming Marvel movies and/or upcoming Marvel TV shows. To be fair, much of this has to do with how Renner was badly injured in a snowplow accident at the start of 2023, resulting in a long recuperation process. However, apparently he had also been approached to do Hawkeye Season 2, but turned it down for a completely understandable reason.
As the actor laid out in an interview with High Performance, this decision didn’t stem from a lack of interest in reprising the archer he’s been playing stretching back to 2011’s Thor. Rather, if he’d agreed to return for another season of Hawkeye, which premiered late 2021, he would have been taking a massive pay cut. As Renner explained:
They asked me to do Season 2, and they offered me half the money. And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s going to take me twice the amount of work for half the amount of money, and eight months of my time, essentially, to do it for half the amount.’ I’m like, ‘I’m sorry? Why? Did you think I’m only half the Jeremy because I got ran over? That’s why you want to pay me half of what I made on the first season?’
Yeah, I can understand why Jeremy Renner would have a problem with this. To be clear, it wasn’t outright stated that his pay would have been cut because of his accident; technically we don’t have an official reason. Renner also clarified that he doesn’t hold any ill will towards the people at Marvel Studios and “not even really Disney,” but more specifically at the Mouse House’s accountants, who he described as “penny pinchers.”
Renner went on to say that he told these accountants to “go fly a kite” after he heard the “insulting offer.” While he’s open to playing Clint Barton again someday, he wants to make sure he’s getting properly compensated, and the amount proposed for Hawkeye Season 2 just wasn’t it. As he put it:
Sadly, I still love the character. I’d still love to do it, but I had to defend myself. I didn’t ask for any more money, mind you. Just pay me what I made made the first season. So it’s all disheartening that that didn’t happen, but that’s fine. I’m happy to let that go, because my body’s probably thanking me, time and time again, that I’m not doing it right now. But we’ll see.
More to come…