Warning: This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War, but I mean, come on, you've seen it right?
One of the compelling mysteries in the lead-up to this year's Avengers: Infinity War was Hawkeye's conspicuous absence from all of the trailers and posters for the film. We found out that his presence in the marketing reflected his presence in the movie, in that he didn't have one. So the marketing made sense, so as to not mislead audiences into thinking Jeremy Renner's character would be in the movie. Still, while many of us thought Hawkeye might have some mystery role in the film, audiences in Antwerp, Belgium must have really thought the original Avenger would be in the movie, as a theater there reportedly used a Hawkeye poster for Infinity War by mistake. Take a look.
Now, it's tough to say for sure how legit this is because it originally comes from a post on Reddit, but if we take it at face value it is pretty great. The poster appears to be a fan one created by BossLogic back in March that has all of the other heroes on the Avengers: Infinity War poster replaced by Hawkeye in a variety of heroic archery poses. It is an awesome poster and if you didn't know any better you could certainly be convinced that is the real deal because of the quality of the image and how official it looks. You can get a clearer look at the original fan poster in the Tweet below:
I'm not sure exactly how a theater like this one sources the posters for the digital displays, but a quick Google search for "Infinity War posters" will bring this image up among the results so perhaps, if real, this was just an innocent mistake. However, something tells me this might have been the result of one industrious Hawkeye fan who was either upset that Hawkeye wasn't in the movie, or just simply wanted to give the neglected archer some love with his own poster at the multiplex.
If this is all true, I wonder if any audiences noticed or complained about 'false advertising' when Hawkeye didn't show up. Although given how awesome Avengers: Infinity War was, I would hope most wouldn't have too much to complain about. I'm also curious if this made its way to Jeremy Renner. I imagine he would get a kick out of it as the actor has already been made quite aware of how fans have lamented his absence in the movie.
Thankfully, Hawkeye fans can take comfort in the fact that the character will finally be returning in Avengers 4 where he may have an important role, albeit a heartbreaking one I suspect. Of course there is also the possibility that Hawkeye will show up in next month's Ant-Man and the Wasp and/or next year's Captain Marvel before we even get to Avengers 4.
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