The first time Hawkeye was name-dropped as a potential character to be introduced in Marvel Studios’ interconnected cinematic universe was back after the success of Iron Man, when rumors pointed towards Hawkeye and Black Widow showing up together in Iron Man 2. Half of that came true and it wasn’t until Jeremy Renner shared some interesting information about a meeting he had with Marvel that we had what came to be concrete info on the character.
Renner, who’s a friend of The Avengers (pre-Joss whedon) screenwriter Zak Penn, had gone in initially to discuss Captain America and instead got caught up in a conversation about the character of Hawkeye. They talked costumes, stories from the books, details about the character and ideas for how he could show up in Thor and later in The Avengers. Two years later, that came true when on the eve of Comic-Con 2010 he had officially signed with Marvel Studios to play Clint Barton.
Hawkeye did have his brief introduction as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and skilled archer in Thor and he was one of the six core heroes feature in The Avengers. Unfortunately for the character however, and actor Jeremy Renner, in a movie like The Avengers there’s very little time to explore the backstory of new characters like he who didn’t have his own prelude via a solo character film. Instead, Renner’s scenes were relegated to mostly doing action set pieces and for a large part of the film, he wasn’t even who he was supposed to be thanks to Loki’s trickery.
Renner sniping again in The Bourne Legacy
In chatting with Hero Complex for The Bourne Legacy, Renner reflects on not being able to play the Clint Barton he learned so much from Zak Penn and a big part of that is possibly due to Joss Whedon’s rewrite of the story and script.
“At the end of the day, 90% of the movie, I’m not the character I signed on to play. I’m literally in there for two minutes, and then all of a sudden… All I could really work on was the physical part of it all, because that didn’t change. That was just the biggest challenge to overcome in playing the guy. Also, we’re pretty much introducing a new superhero character to everyone in a movie where there’s a thousand superheroes. So there’s not a lot of back story or understanding we can really tell about who Clint Barton is, or Hawkeye, and is he working for SHIELD or not. There’s a lot of unanswered questions, even for me. And I was OK with that. At least I was still in the movie. And I was glad for that. The closest thing I could really link to was Scarlett [Johansson's] character, Black Widow, because they have a history. And that definitely plays in the movie, I think. And obviously, you can’t go into too much just because there’s so much story to tell, but you definitely get a sense that they’re connected, and that there’s something really, really important that ties them together. And I could try to summarize it, but it can go a lot of places. That excites me, though, that there’s room for other things.”
Renner wasn’t a fan of playing bad guy Hawkeye:
“I prefer the good, because if we go to the evil part, or hypnotized or whatever the heck you want to call it, it’s kind of a vacancy. Not even a bad guy, because there’s not really a consciousness to him. The interesting part was being guilty about the bad things I did do when I was hypnotized. I think he’s already an interesting enough character. To really kind of take away who that character is and just have him be this sort of robot, essentially, and have him be this minion for evil that Loki uses. Again, I could just focus on the task. I was limited, you know what I mean? I was a terminator in a way. So yeah, fun stunts. But is there any sort of emotional content or thought process? No. That doesn’t exist in that time [that he's hypnotized]. It happens to be for most of the movie.”
Clearly, the twice-Oscar-nominated actor would rather have been utilized differently, but he has no regrets and was happy to be a part of such an important film and franchise.
“You know, there are a lot of people in that movie. And a lot of important characters. And my character, I felt like if I can help serve story, then I did my job.”
Renner also addressed the often-repeated question of whether or not he’ll get his own Hawkeye film as suggested by Marvel president of production Kevin Feige. While he says he doesn’t know and that it depends on Marvel (“we’ll see”), we all know the Hawkeye solo film is not going to happen simply due to the amount of other characters and stories that are taking up the studio’s resources (and release dates). Renner does happily speak about how cool his bow was in the film and he shares his knowledge of the character from the books being a lone wolf and not always a team player. Hopefully for fans (and Renner), we get to see that explored in The Avengers 2 and, if rumors are true, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier before that – a film which is seemingly shaping up to be the SHIELD movie.
Iron Man 3 releases May 3, 2013, Thor: The Dark World on November 8, 2013, Captain America: The Winter Soldier on April 4, 2014 and Guardians of the Galaxy on August 1, 2014.
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Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.
Source: Hero Complex
Hawkeye concept art by Andy Park.
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HAWK EYE < GREEN ARROW
No….no. Just…no
Look, I know that you might think Hawk-eye is a weak superhero, But i think that Hawk-eye is pretty amazing. And the best part about The Avengers is that Hawk-eye wasn’t left wearing that awful purple costume, but he stiull had some purple.
Purple suit or not, the dude still needs a mask. Wolverine had the same problem in the X-Men movies. Without the mask, he’s just plain old Logan. Likewise, without the mask, Hawkeye is just plain old Clint Barton. Boring . . .
HAWK EYE < GREEN ARROW
Uhhh no diffrent characters dude!!!!
I like Jeremy & his work therefore I can understand about his POV on matter Hawkeye: BUT, even if I’d have preferred to see him slightly more featured in Avengers or previously Thor, I still think that his being the “bad zombie” in A. has added more pace & spice to his role than just playing the plain good Robin Hood, right? because there was the tension of not knowing if he could be saved etc (curiously this reminded me of Peta in the book Mockinjay ;-P). Cheers
They should strike while the arrow is hot, but I’m still shy on whether it can be the character can do big box office as a solo character for the entirety of the movie. The storyline, back history and such, as well as the plot of the movie would lend to whether another Marvel 2nd or 1st string player should have some interwoven appeal/draw but it’s possible. If good, I’d see it . . . over a Bourne movie at this point.
I want to see a hawkeye solo film sooooo bad! And hawkeye is better than Green arrow. Unless someone can convince me otherwise
Have you seen the TV show Arrow? Right now Green Arrow is looking more interesting than Hawkeye, sorry.
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so bad! And hawkeye is better than Green arrow. Unless someone can convince me otherwise
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so bad! And hawkeye is better than Green arrow. Unless someone can show me otherwise
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so much! And hawkeye is better than Green arrow. Unless someone can show me otherwise
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so much! And hawkeye > green arrow. Unless someone can show me otherwise
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so much! Also hawkeye > green arrow. Unless someone can show me otherwise
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so much! Also hawkeye > green arrow. Unless someone can show me otherwise XD
I want to see a hawkeye solo film so much! Also hawkeye > green arrow XD
A Hawkeye/Black Widow/S.H.I.E.L.D movie would be awesome!
yeah, I really don’t care what he plays just so long as i get to see him shirtless…. well, who am i kidding? i’ll take him anyway i can get him!!! yeah my husband just rolls his eyes and shakes his head at me, but honestly Renner is the only reason i saw Avengers in the first place! lol
Yeah Hawk eye is Bad Ass,I think it would be awesome if they made a Movie Only about him.
If Hawkeye ever returns to the big screen, PLEASE give him a mask. No, it doesn’t have to be purple. But just give the dude a mask!
Why can’t they be like the comic, why do people say it like it’s an embarrassing history, it’s not. It’s the building blocks and the future of cinemas block busters. They need to take the designs and material and just bring it to reality. Why are they finding it so difficult? If i see one more X-Men film where everyone looks like they hit wardrobe on the set of Tim Burton original Batman I’m gonna flip.
I cannot see Hawk eye wearing a Mask, it’s just Not his style.
I can understand how renner was upset over his lack of role. I think he deserves more of a spotlight in the next avengers since he does have a great backstory and renner himself is a phenomenal actor. That being said i don’t think the markets there for a solo hawkeye movie because the general public knows too little about him. What would be a great idea to help their backstory out is to make a movie about hawkeye and black widow and their personal story. To think of Scarlet Johannsen and Jeremy Renner together in a movie and to be possible lovers/ mega assasins together seems like the perfect story for every demographic to me. It would be like Mr. and Mrs. Smith but minuse the crappy actors and vince vaughn.
the media outlets are REALLY killing this Renner is pissed with his role in the Avengers shtick arent they?
this story was being pushed around the net all last yr &its STILL going? the guy said something ONCE ffs
&i for one LIKED his portrayal.. limited tho it was to being the villain it still embodied the type of efficient killer &all round bad ass hes capable of being.. or more likely WAS before he joined the side of the angels (backstory potential)
More superhuman agents though, and only orginal Nick Fury in flashbacks. That’d take away from the ulitmate version.
I didn’t mind him bad, wasn’t he bad without knowing it or something. Him and Swordsman.
While they’re design doesn’t have to be identical to the comic, they should be pretty close for at least some length of the film, eventually.
Yay! More of this tiny little actor, running around in his platform boots!
i hope that marvels would release a hawkeye-black widow film. there should be no worry about how it would hit the market.
1. the renner and johannson tandem would make it successful, i think.
2. there history makes a good backstory, and their story is an interesting one. they may not have superhuman capacities, but their personal histories would make up for it, making the film interesting (ironman 3 focused more on the human tony stark, and it was successful!)
3. make it action-packed.
4. just make good trailers and other cool marketing gimmicks