It’s long been a grievance of Marvel fans that every one of the founding members of the Avengers has got their own movie franchise except for Black Widow and Hawkeye. Of course, thanks to Scarlet Johansson’s star power, a solo film for the latter is surely only a matter of time. But a Hawkeye movie has unfortunately never been discussed in any official way.
And that’s truly a shame, as Jeremy Renner is all over the idea. In fact, he told SCMP that he thinks having a feature film all about Clint Barton and his amazing archery skills “would be a wonderful thing.” However, he did have one warning to Marvel:
“Just don’t wait too long! I don’t want to be in my 50s in tights.”
Unfortunately, if Renner really doesn’t want to play Hawkeye in his fifties, that means we don’t have much of a chance of a standalone film. The actor is currently 46, so a solo movie would have to appear by 2021 and Marvel’s slate is already full up until 2020. Which means that, unless Hawkeye is made shortly after that, it might never happen.
Not that the character is guaranteed to survive that long, anyway. There are rumours floating around that Agent Barton will be one of the characters who lays down their life in the battle against Thanos in Avengers 4. At the very least, it’s looking highly likely that the hero will ditch his Hawkeye identity for a new one: Ronin, complete with a darker costume and mohawk haircut.
Further in the interview, Renner goes on to say that he’s “not focusing on new work” at the moment as he’s looking forward to spending time with his family. It’s possible, then, that his talk about being interested in a potential Hawkeye movie is just a smokescreen for the fact that he already knows his days in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are numbered.
One way or another, all will be revealed when Avengers: Infinity War hits cinemas on May 4th, 2018. Avengers 4 then follows almost a year later on May 3rd, 2019.
