Marvel Contracts Never Determined Avengers: Endgame's Deaths
Avengers: Endgame saw the heroes who survived Thanos’ snap in Avengers: Infinity War joining forces to undo the snap and bring back half of life in the universe, but it also saw the deaths of many big characters – and contrary to popular belief, their departures had nothing to do with the contracts of the cast. In over a decade, the MCU has brought a variety of characters (heroes, villains, and allies) from Marvel Comics to the big screen and now to TV/streaming as well, and the first three Phases – collectively known as the Infinity Saga – were defined by the leadership of the Avengers.
In 2012, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) joined forces for the first time in The Avengers. The team returned for three more adventures in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame, the last two being the peak of the MCU so far as they saw the vanishing of half of life in the universe and their return thanks to the remaining Avengers and time-travel. However, this heroic act of restoring the actual balance of the universe came with a big prize: the deaths of some of the team’s most popular and beloved characters.
While the characters who disappeared as a result of Thanos’ snap in Infinity War returned when the Hulk undid it in Endgame, those who died prior to the snap(s) couldn’t be brought back, as was the case of Vision (Paul Bettany). Endgame also featured a couple of deaths that weren’t a result of the snap, and unlike Vision, who returned in WandaVision and now there’s White Vision, not all of them have or will come back. The two biggest deaths Endgame saw were those of Black Widow and Iron Man – the former when she sacrificed herself so Hawkeye could take the Soul Stone, and the latter when he did the same in order to save the world. Now, it’s widely believed that Marvel brought the arcs of Black Widow and Iron Man to an end because the contracts of the actors were nearing their end, but as it turns out, it had nothing to do with their contracts.
In the book The Story of Marvel Studios, a lot of behind-the-scenes stories and secrets are revealed, among those what really drove Anthony and Joe Russo to kill certain characters in Avengers: Endgame, and their contracts didn’t play a part in this at all. It was widely speculated that Black Widow and Iron Man died in Endgame because the contracts of Johansson and Downey Jr. were nearing their ends, but Joe Russo explained that it was just he and his brother being “fans of these stories and these characters” and asking themselves where they wanted to see this adventure end, adding that there was “very little pushback from inside the walls of Disney”. The contracts of Johansson (who returned for one final appearance in Black Widow, set years before the events of Endgame) and Downey Jr. coming to an end was more a coincidence than a contributing factor to their characters dying, but it’s unknown what would have happened to their characters had their contracts expired and their characters were alive and well.
In the end, Anthony and Joe Russo got to tell the story they wanted and through it changed the MCU forever, and whether Black Widow and Iron Man deserved to die or not (and especially in the way they did) is up to every viewer. The MCU has grown so much and become so popular that there’s always a lot of speculation around it and its projects, and not everything turns out to be true, such as the contracts of the cast of Avengers: Endgame influencing what happened to the characters.