Marvel Studios Assembled continues to give us a look behind the scenes into the making of our favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe projects. With the most recent Marvel Disney+ series wrapping up back in December, it’s time we got some more insight from the people who make the MCU possible. This time around, Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld take us behind the curtain to give us a look at the making of Hawkeye.
This latest installment of Assembled opens a bit differently from others. For some reason, they felt the need to catch us up on everything Clint Barton has been through in his 10 plus-year history in the MCU. It almost feels like a longer episode of Marvel Legends but with commentary. They don’t spend a ton of time on this right off the bat, but they do come back to it several times throughout the documentary and it seems as though it comes back to bite them as there are a whole lot of topics for them to burn through.
Eventually, executive producer Trinh Tran talks a bit about the inspiration for this series mostly coming from the popular Matt Fraction “Hawkeye” run on Marvel Comics. Previously, the MCU had focused on the Ultimates Universe version of Clint which was much more serious and a stoic. This time around though, the team wanted to have more fun with the character and chose to go with Fraction’s version of the character, which eventually led them to beginning in Kate Bishop as well.
And speaking of Kate Bishop, Tran also shares a funny story about how Marvel decided to bring in Hailee Steinfeld for the role of the second Hawkeye. She mentions that she first met Kate with Kevin Feige, who called her in to see if she would be interested in the role. She laughs as she admits that this meeting ended with Feige simply offering Steinfeld the role on the spot, and her accepting.
A fair amount of time is spent discussing “Rogers: The Musical” as well. It’s amazing to see that such a small and silly part of the show required such an incredible amount of work to create. When watching Hawkeye you don’t think about the fact that they basically had to create a Broadway-caliber musical just for one scene, but that’s exactly what they did. We see the cast of the musical going through training and rehearsals and it reminds you of just how much work the people at Marvel put into every last detail for these projects.
This conversation also gives us one of the coolest moment of the doc as they discuss the casting process for this musical within the show. They cast all the actors for the musical locally in Atlanta and we get to hear these actors talk about how they never thought they would be playing characters like Hawkeye or Tony Stark. These are the moments that make these behind-the-scenes looks so great because you never even think about them as you watch the show.
Luckily, this doc does give us a little bit of time on the Tracksuit Mafia, which quickly became one of the most beloved groups of villains in the history of the MCU. That conversation leads into more of a focus on Fra Free, who played Kazi, and Alaqua Cox, who played Maya Lopez. While Cox certainly gets more time in the spotlight here, both actors and characters deserved more time as they were fantastic in the series. It especially would have been very interesting to see more of Cox’s work leading up to the series as she is a deaf actress wit ha prosthetic leg, playing a deaf character with a prosthetic leg and she is appearing in her first ever acting role.
We also fly through a number of other topics like the creation of the immersive sets, the work of stunt coordinator Heidi Moneymaker, the creation of that unforgettable chase scene and more. Several of these topics deserved more time but unfortunately there were so many things to get through that there just wasn’t enough time. Some of the character conversations and Hawkeye recaps could have been cut to make room.
It is interesting though that Heidi Moneymaker is prominently featured in this edition of Assembled when she was previously left out of the Black Widow documentary. The former Black Widow stunt performer is now acting as the stunt coordinator and therefore has a bigger role to play. It’s nice to see that she gets her well-deserved time in the spotlight here.
Eleanor Bishop and Jack Duquesne are given some time in this behind-the-scenes look as Vera Farmiga and Tony Dalton discuss their respective characters. However, two characters who do not get enough time are Yelena and Lucky the Pizza Dog. The relationship both of these characters had with Kate were two of the best parts of the show and it seemed as though more time could have been spent exploring that topic. It also would have been great to see the actors interact behind the scenes a bit more.
Very little time is also given to Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, but that is a bit more understandable as he has a much smaller role in the show, at least in terms of screen time. Still, is almost becomes distracting when fans are expecting to hear from him (and hoping to get some answers regarding what this means for the future of the characters of Daredevil in the MCU) and he doesn’t show up until about 55 minutes into this hour-long documentary.
Overall, this isn’t exactly the best installment of Marvel Studios Assembled but it is still a very entertaining and interesting look at the Making of Hawkeye. We get to hear some interesting notes about the development of this story and why some of the characters were involved. It’s always fun to hear the though processes of the people that bring these incredible stories to life and this is yet another example of exactly that. \
You can watch Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye on Disney+ now.