Jeremy Renner Missed Out on Being a Major Mission: Impossible Player Due To Avengers: Infinity War
Jeremy Renner is famously known for playing the role of Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He has two Academy Award nominations for his roles in The Hurt Locker and The Town. He has appeared in quite a lot of high-budget movies and TV shows, such as The Avengers films, Hawkeye, The Bourne Legacy, Arrival, Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol, and Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation.
It is impossible to think of the Mission: Impossible franchise without Tom Cruise’s titular character, Ethan Hunt. In fact, the latest Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One, actually depended on Tom Cruise’s star power and irresistible screen presence for success. So, it might come as a surprise to fans when they get to know that the franchise was actually thinking of abandoning Tom Cruise at one point and taking up Jeremy Renner as its frontman.
Jeremy Renner’s journey with Mission: Impossible and how he missed out on being a leading man
The Mission Impossible franchise wanted to make Jeremy Renner their new face. At the time the decision was taken, Jeremy Renner was at the peak of his career with his Oscar nomination for The Hurt Locker. He also managed to catch everyone’s eye as part of the Avengers in the MCU as Hawkeye.
It was also around the time Tom Cruise was having a bad PR time due to many antics like jumping on Opera Winfrey’s couch. His movie Knight and Day also failed to make any significant buzz at the box office, which made everyone think that his days as a leading hero were over.
In November 2010, during an interview with MTV, Jeremy Renner was asked about his role in Mission: Impossible, and he opened up by saying how he was supposed to be the new potential center of the franchise. However, by the time Ghost Protocol was released, it had become a massive box office hit that proved Tom Cruise’s star power was far from over. So, the studio took a pause on its urgent decision to make Jeremy Renner the face of the franchise.
What happened to Jeremy Renner’s Mission: Impossible character?
Although Renner’s character, William Bandit, appeared in Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, his fate in the franchise was far from sealed. He does not appear in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which is said to be due to a scheduling conflict with Avengers: Infinity War. In the Empire podcast, Christopher McQuarrie revealed the awkward situation as he was held back in 2017, in case he was needed in the sets of Avengers: Infinity War, a movie in which he does not appear later on.
McQuarrie did come up with the idea of a cameo that would require a few days of work, which Jeremy Renner turned down because he was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the franchise. He publicly expressed his dislike in an interview with Playboy magazine (via. CinemaBlend) about how he had to work with fragments of scripts that had no meaning, which made it a very frustrating process for him as an actor.
“There have been four successful versions before this one, so why would I fight the process? I just went and gave to the best of my ability in the scenario I was in. Now, was it the best scenario for me? The best at what I’m good at? Fuck, no. Not having any information about what the heck is going on doesn’t empower any artists to be at the best of their ability. I trusted Tom Cruise, [director] Chris McQuarrie and the studio, and I went with it.”
It was during this time that Jeremy Renner’s time started changing as well. The Bourne Legacy did mediocre at the box office compared to the numbers Matt Damon pulled in, and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, although a hit, never did well enough for a sequel. He was also seen as the least popular Avengers in the MCU due to the star-studded cast of the Avengers movies. That, alongside Cruise’s success in Ghost Protocol, made Paramount think twice, and ultimately, the idea of Jeremy Renner taking up the mantle of a lead man never materialized.
The Mission: Impossible movies can be watched on Paramount+, Netflix, Prime Videos, and Apple TV.
