Marvel Studios’ “Hawkeye” so far has been marketed as something rather breezy, an action-comedy farce with a Christmas setting that looks like it’s trying to be akin to a Shane Black movie without the swearing.
However, filmmakers Bert & Bertie, who directed several of the show’s episodes, have recently revealed there will be some dark elements as well as this follows in the wake of the events “Avengers: Endgame”.
That film saw Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton ‘going off the reservation’ as it were after his wife and children vanished in Thanos’ ‘Snap’. We saw in ‘Endgame’ he had become the violent vigilante Ronin until re-embracing his Hawkeye side.
Talking with GamesRadar, Bert says the series will revisit the Ronin persona and the impact that time is still having on Barton:
“[Jeremy Renner] wanted the darkness. He wanted to go there. And there are moments that the Ronin Clint resurfaces. It’s very important to have those depths that you can explore so that he can come out of it.”
Bertie then talked about the tone, saying while there are dark serious moments, Renner also embraced the overall mild absurdity of the show as well:
“I think that Jeremy was on board from the get-go with the tone of the show being not super serious the whole time; the slight absurdity of it and that buddy-cop dynamic.”
Separately, EW spoke with executive producer Trinh Tran who says the acclaimed Matt Fraction and David Aja comic run in 2012 is what the show is targeting in terms of tone and style:
“The Fraction/Aja style and tone is what we were really gravitating towards. Once they encounter each other and go off on this journey together, there’s so much they can bounce off each other.”
“Hawkeye” runs for six episodes which kick off on Disney+ on November 24th.
