Not even the pandemic has been able to slow down the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings the two highest-grossing domestic theatrical releases since Bad Boys for Life arrived in January 2020, while What If…? is the fourth episodic exclusive to hit Disney Plus so far this year, with Hawkeye still to come.
Even the trailers are breaking records, with Spider-Man: No Way Home obliterating the previous benchmark set by Avengers: Endgame, and now Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton is getting in on the act. As per The Direct, the first trailer for Hawkeye has been liked on YouTube more times than any other MCU series so far.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a huge number of folks who’d call the title hero their favorite Avenger, but if the social media buzz was any indication, MCU enthusiasts are fully on board for seeing the Phase One stalwart take Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop under his wing and train her in the ways of superheroism.
At the time of writing, the Hawkeye promo has over 833,000 likes on YouTube, ahead of the 725,000 generated by the first look at WandaVision, the 716,000 garnered by Loki, the 695,000 thumbs ups given to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s maiden footage, and the 648,000 accumulated by What If…?. Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s sitcom-inspired saga has held the top spot since January, but it’s now officially been dislodged by the franchise’s resident expert archer.
