Kevin Feige recently reiterated that Iron Man 3 definitely qualifies as a Christmas movie, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t dipped its toes into freezing festive waters in the eight years since. Until next week, that is.
Wednesday brings the two-episode premiere of Hawkeye on Disney Plus, with the creative team promising not just a festive romp, but an absurd one. The plot is set into motion by Clint Barton receiving an invitation to Rogers: The Musical, before he finds himself drawn back into the superhero business against his will.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, producer Trinh Tran explained why Hawkeye unfolds during the holidays, and it’s all to do with each streaming exclusive making sure it stands out from the pack.
“Well, as we were brainstorming and talking about the story a couple of years ago, we were trying to figure out how we can set this series apart from Wandavision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki. And one way was to set it around the holiday times. Out of all of the characters, it made sense for Clint Barton’s story to be told around this time of year because he’s a family guy.
He’s one of the few Avengers with kids, and after the fallout of what happened in Endgame — where he lost his kids for five years, became Ronin and got them back — this is the first Christmas that he’s going to be spending with his family. And the big question of the series is if he’s going to be able to make it home in time in order to do so. So there’s that big weight that he’s trying to figure out as he’s stuck elsewhere. He’s trying to deal with something that has put him on this mission and he has to figure out how to get out of it.”
As the fifth Disney Plus show of the year, Hawkeye is set to round out the MCU’s small screen 2021 with a bang, and all of the footage we’ve seen so far from the action-packed New York City buddy adventure has painted it as a completely different beast to the reality-bending sitcom shenanigans of WandaVision, the prescient politics of The Falcon and the Winter Solider, the multiversal animated escapades of What If…? and the earth-shattering revelations that capped off Loki.
