A photo posted to Marvel Studios’ Instagram and Twitter accounts featuring most of the MCU’s female characters on the set of Avengers: Endgame has stoked the ire of fans. Why? Well, not for who it does include, but for who it doesn’t.
Along with a few key crew members, the black-and-white photo features the vast majority of the MCU’s women posing and smiling for the camera, including Danai Gurira as Okoye, Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, Evangeline Lilly as the Wasp, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, and Karen Gillan as Nebula. But Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie are missing in action.
There is, of course, a good reason for this. Due to scheduling conflicts, Thompson’s Valkyrie had to be digitally inserted into her scenes during Endgame’s climactic battle — meaning that she wasn’t excluded, simply unavailable. As for Black Widow… well, spoiler alert… Black Widow took a swan dive off a cliff on the alien planet of Vormir. The good news is that she managed to retrieve the Soul Stone for Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye. The bad news is that the character bit the big one, and couldn’t join in the big fight against Thanos during the movie’s climax.
This being the case, there was obviously no earthly reason for Johansson to be on set the day that this photo was taken. As you can plainly see, the cast and crew were in the midst of shooting that big final battle, by which point Johansson’s contribution to the film was complete. Sure, somebody could have given her a ring and invited her to come on back down to the set to pose for this lovely shot with her castmates. But we’re talking about a world-famous A-list actress who just might have had another professional engagement on the day that they decided to snap an impromptu photo.
Of course, knowing this didn’t keep fans on social media from completely losing their minds over the totally understandable exclusions. Complicating matters is the fact that many fans have widely speculated that the all-female team-up scene in Endgame was also meant to tease the imminent arrival of a movie based on A-Force, a team of superpowered women introduced in the pages of Marvel comics in 2016. One fan even promised an uprising if Black Widow were to be excluded from such a project, should it ever actually materialize.
Of course, for every fan ready to burn down the internet over their favorite lady Avengers being missing from the shot, there was at least one more jumping in to helpfully point out that neither of them were on set that day. This fact rather than some nefarious, photo-excluding conspiracy was the likely reason for their absence. But apparently, there simply aren’t enough things in the world for some people to get worked up over, which is the only reason we can think of for there to be any controversy of any type whatsoever over this perfectly charming photo. Keep watching the video to see why Endgame fans are ticked over this behind the scenes photo!
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