Thanks to the influx of excitement emerging from Comic-Con detailing the official title for the super team-up we’ve all come to love, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, chatter is circulating as to the importance of each of the characters with newcomers Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch entering the fray. However, what does this mean for the pair of master assassins, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye? Worry not! Joss Whedon urges you not to panic, hinting that both the lovable archer and seductive markswoman will have even bigger roles to play in the sequel.
Whilst Hawkeye managed a measly twelve minutes and forty seconds of screen time within AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (with his longest scene (two minutes forty seconds) being a conversation with the aptly named Black Widow about one of their previous experiences together) Black Widow herself managed to rack up thirty-three minutes and thirty-five seconds. cementing herself as the third most seen protagonist after Captain America and Iron Man, respectively. Another fine example of how Whedon prefers his female protagonists strong.
Much of the screen time Hawkeye received, however, featured him in a possessed state, not allowing for much, if any, exploration of character or development. After publicly admitting his disappointment towards his role, it seems Whedon has taken measures to ensure there’s no encore, admitting “a lot of the movie has to do with their place not just in America, but the world. Part of the fun for me, definitely this time around, is writing Hawkeye. He did get possessed pretty early by a bad guy and had to walk around all slowly for most of the movie, so now it’s nice to actually have the character there and see him interact with the other guys.””
With this recent development, it seems Hawkeye may become one of Marvel’s more popular characters in recent years, considering the success of his recently published solo comic-series ‘Hawkeye‘ by Matt Fraction and David Aja.
Which is not to downplay the success of Black Widow, whom Whedon has hinted affects AGE OF ULTRON in “a big way,” stating that “Natasha is a huge part of the sequel because you do want to concentrate on the people who don’t have their own franchises. Although she in ‘Cap 2,’ [and] she’s great. She was the most fun for me because she’s not a hero, you know.”
In a universe as vast and seemingly endless as that of Marvel’s, which as Miss. Romanoff once said is of “monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for,” it’s important to remember, according to Whedon that “These guys are heroes, you are a spy. It’s a different thing — it’s a different skill set — and you don’t have their moral high ground or any of that good stuff.’ And that just makes her so interesting to me. So yeah, the stuff I’ve got going on with her in the second one is killer.”
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is set to be released in Summer, 2015 (too long if you ask me, but you can’t rush art).
Source: MTV
