The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s expansion into episodic storytelling only began in January, but the fifth series of 2021 arrives in less than three weeks when Hawkeye‘s first two episodes premiere on the 24th.
So far, the franchise’s lineup of Disney Plus exclusives have been characterized by their vastly different genre trappings; WandaVision was a reality-bending examination of grief viewed through a sitcom lens, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier dealt with prescient sociopolitical themes wrapped up in an action thriller, Loki was an existential look at fate, purpose and destiny, while What If…? was obviously animated, and thus free to get really weird.
While they’re poles apart thematically, one thing all the aforementioned titles have in common is that one director helmed the entire run. However, that isn’t the case with Hawkeye, which sees Rhys Thomas and duo Bert and Bertie share the workload.
In a new interview with Total Film, Thomas explained what makes the six-episode festive escapade an outlier among the MCU’s shows to have aired so far.
“The way TV is run is obviously different to features…In features, it’s more director forward and sometimes you might have multiple writers. We were in this middle ground where you’ve got Jonathan Igla and the writing team that have so much to do because you’ve got so many episodes and so much story to carry. We would just try and keep in sync throughout. The way we shot it, Bert and Bertie and I, there were some days where we overlapped. I might come in the morning and then hand it off to them, sharing the crew. It was all unique and a fine balance.”
Given that we’re talking about the world’s most popular franchise delivering yet more content to continue a bumper 2021, people don’t need to be sold on Hawkeye, but it helps to hear that yet another new angle is being taken to ensure that stagnancy doesn’t set in even after thirteen years and 30 projects.
