The directors of Hawkeye didn't know that their surprise cameo would tie in with a major surprise in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Hawkeye followed Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) as he attempted to clean up the mess he left behind during the Blip because of his activities under the guise of The Ronin and passed the torch to new expert archer Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). One of the biggest MCU reveals of the series was the fact that Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) - who first appeared in the Netflix series Daredevil - is now an official part of the MCU film canon and is still operating in post-Blip New York City.

This Kingpin reveal occurred at the very end of the penultimate episode of Hawkeye, which premiered just five days before the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 17, 2021. That film managed to pack in even more MCU cameos, both in the fact that it brought Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) into a solo Spider-Man film for the first time and in the plotline where villains and heroes from previous Spider-Man universes were brought into Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) universe, including Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom (Tom Hardy) from Venom, Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) from Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man trilogy, and Lizard (Rhys Ifans), Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) from Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2. On top of this enormous heap of cameos is a brief scene where Peter must lawyer up and hires the best representation that Hell's Kitchen has to offer: Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), AKA Daredevil himself.

Related: Sony's Venom Spinoffs Are In The Amazing Spider-Man Timeline - Theory Explained

Yesterday, Hawkeye directors Bert & Bertie spoke with ComicBook.com about the way that all the Marvel projects are interconnected. While they were allowed to watch Black Widow to prep for the inclusion of Florence Pugh's character Yelena Belova in the series, they were only privy to certain information about the impending Spider-Man: No Way Home, even though it premiered during the same month as the series' run. Despite the fact that their Kingpin reveal connected Daredevil to the MCU just days before Spider-Man, they "didn't know about the Charlie Cox of it all until later."

Peter Parker being interviewed by police in Spider-Man: No Way Home

Eagle-eyed Marvel fans had been speculating that Charlie Cox would be entering the MCU for quite some time. However, Marvel kept such a tight lid on their No Way Home cameos that they didn't even reveal Maguire and Garfield's involvement in the entire promotional leadup. It's peculiar that the tight lid included the other people involved in bringing Daredevil back to the MCU, but their "need to know" spoiler plan clearly worked out.

On the backs of those big MCU cameos, Spider-Man: No Way Home has become the most profitable film of the entire pandemic. It has also been able to compete in the big leagues of pre-pandemic cinema, rising into the top 10 highest-performing domestic films of all time. In fact, last weekend it reached #5, knocking James Cameron's megahit Titanic from its perch.

Next: MCU Theory: No Way Home Prevented Maguire & Garfield's Spider-Man Deaths

Source: ComicBook.com

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