Jeremy Renner's Marvel movie hero Hawkeye gets his own eponymous small-screen spin-off starting with two episodes on Disney+ today.
The holiday-themed show that sees Renner's archer Avenger reluctantly taking on a protégé in Hailee Steinfeld's headstrong Kate Bishop.
The series follows the onscreen events of Avengers: Endgame, during which Renner's grief-stricken Clint Barton took out his anger over Thanos snapping away his family by going on an underworld killing spree as the masked vigilante Ronin.
After Tony Stark and Hawkeye's other fellow Avengers saved Barton's family -- along with half of humanity --- Renner's character is trying to get back to a normal life as a dad.
"We start off with a very, very happy step forward into a family vacation into New York at Christmas and taking the kids to go see a musical, and then everything kind of goes sideways from there." Renner said at a recent press conference.
"Sideways" is where Hawkeye fan Kate comes in. "[S]he's inspired by him and motivated by him and wants to be at his level and is very overeager -- and he puts up with a lot," Steinfeld laughs.
Renner says Kate sees past Barton's "veneer of grumpiness."
"It comes from just the weight and the horrors and the tragedies and loss that come with the...superhero game. And the lightness...that Hailee's character brings in kind of counteracts that. It's really cathartic and I think, quite beautiful."
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige sums it up: "Six episode, six days, will Clint make it home for Christmas? Which was fun and a breath of fresh air after world-ending stakes and Celestials bursting out of planets, and Multiverse shenanigans. This is, like Hawkeye himself, a grounded, family-based show."
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