Hawkeye season 2 will happen without Jeremy Renner, as the actor claims that Marvel only offered him half the salary he received for the first run.
Assuming it does indeed go ahead, Hawkeye season 2 will have to write around the absence of its title character. That’s according to Hawkeye himself – actor Jeremy Renner, who claims that he declined the offer to return to the role after the overlords at Disney essentially halved his salary.
“They asked me to do season two, and they offered me half the money,” Renner told the High Performance Podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Renner added that it wasn’t Marvel that made the alleged salary cut, but rather “the penny pinchers, the accountants” at its owner, Disney. In a further grim detail, Renner suggests that the reduced salary was offered in the wake of his near-fatal accident involving a snowplow.
“I’m like, wow, it’s going to take me twice the amount of work for half the amount of money – eight months of my time, essentially, and you 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?’ Is that why want to pay me half of what I made on the first season?”
Renner isn’t the only Marvel franchise actor to talk about salary offers in recent months. Carrie Coon, who played the villainous Proxima Midnight in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, declined to reprise the role in Endgame because Marvel refused to increase her salary. This was according to to her husband, actor and playwright Tracy Letts.
The Renner situation is somewhat different, though, because it involves such a high-profile member of the Avengers. Hawkeye was also one of Marvel’s more acclaimed shows when it came out in 2021. All of which makes us wonder whether someone at Disney will send the actor a box of Quality Street by way of apology. For now, though, the beef is well and truly public.
“I told him to go fly a kite at the insult offer,” said Renner. “And so we didn’t see eye to eye on it, sadly. I still love the character, I would 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 you paid me the first season. So it’s a little disheartening that didn’t happen, but that’s fine. I’m happy to let that go, because my body’s probably thanking me that I’m not doing that right now.”
