Things have been quiet on the Hawkeye front in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a long time now. Aside from Hailee Steinfeld cameoing as Kate Bishop at the end of The Marvels, neither she nor mentor Clint Barton have been in the spotlight since Hawkeye played to Disney+ subscription-holders in late 2021. Last week, Jermey Renner revealed that he’d turned down making Hawkeye Season 2 due to contract disputes, but new details have come to light alleging that there’s a different reason that second batch of episodes never happened.
Renner stated that the reason he didn’t agree to do Hawkeye Season 2 was because he was only offered “half the money” he did for Season 1. However, both TheInSneider and Puck are reporting that Disney and Marvel deliberately lowballed him on the offer to ensure Season 2 wouldn't happen at all.
The former outlet claimed that Disney and Marvel did this because they knew Renner would reject the offer and that would give them a reason to not “have to make a second season of the show.” The latter outlet backed up this claim about the lowballing and wanting to “pin the cancellation” on the Clint Barton actor. It also mentioned that Hawkeye “attracted middling viewership,” so costs would have had to come down for Season 2 regardless.
It is true that Hawkeye didn’t exactly knock it out of the park with viewership. According to Samba TV (via Deadline), the premiere episode was viewed by 1.5 million households during its first five days of availability. That was a 40% drop-off from what Loki Season 1’s first episode earned within that same amount of time in June 2021. However, the finale did fare much better by collecting 938 million of viewing time during the Christmas week it premiered, up from the 853 million minutes the first two episodes (via THR).
Regardless, if InSneider and Puck’s reports are accurate, then Hawkeye just didn’t perform well enough for Marvel and Disney to push Season 2 forward. I can understand that, but wanting to pin the blame on Jeremy Renner for the series not continuing seems uncomfortably excessive and unnecessary. Did these companies really need to use that as public justification for why Hawkeye wouldn’t be continuing? Even though I thought this was one of Marvel’s better Disney+ shows, it ended in a way that I didn’t automatically assume it was going to keep going.
In any case, don’t count on Hawkeye Season 2 being added to the list of upcoming Marvel TV shows barring some unexpected development. As Renner admitted in his interview, his body is “probably thanking” him that this isn’t happening, referring to his snowplow accident at the start of 2023. Still, I hope he and Marvel Studios can come to an arrangement and find a way for him to return elsewhere in the MCU. It’d be great to see Clint back in action again, even with Kate Bishop having fully taken over the Hawkeye mantle.
For now, Thunderbolts* is now playing in theaters, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps follows on July 25. TV-wise, Ironheart premieres June 24 on Disney+, and Wonder Man premiers on the 2025 TV schedule in November.
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