Jeremy Renner says Mission Impossible producers tried to kill off his character

Jeremy Renner has revealed that plans were made for his character to be killed off but he nixed them when he refused to travel for the shoot.

The Marvel star, 53, featured in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in 2011, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation four years later.

He was noticeably absent however in the two sequels that followed - Fallout in 2018 and Dead Reckoning in 2023 - with his character William Brandt revealed to have retired from the spy force at the end of Rogue Nation.

Appearing on the latest episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Renner discussed his decision to bow out of the Tom Cruise-led action flicks.

“I remember they tried to bring me [overseas] for a week so they could kill my character, and I was like, ‘No, you don’t get to do that. You’re not going to drag me over there and just kill my character,’ like get out of here!” Renner told host Josh Horowitz.

“If you’re going to do this and you’re going to use my character, you’re going to do it right,” he continued.

With a laugh, he added that he told the director, Christopher McQuarrie: “Dude, you’re not going to do this to me like that; you’re not going to do me wrong.”

It comes after he previously said another factor was wanting to focus more on being a hands-on dad to his 11-year-old daughter, Ava, whom he shares with his ex-wife, Canadian model Sonni Pacheco.

He could be tempted to make a return to the Mission Impossible universe in future however.

Speaking to Collider, he explained: “Maybe now that my daughter is older that could happen.

“I’d always jump into a Mission: Impossible anytime and back into Brandt. It’s great.”