The first episodes of Hawkeye shot onto our streaming screens last week with aplomb. The confidence with which the show mixed character moments within the shared storyworld of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is worthy of a bullseye. The story feels contained so far in connecting to Clint and Kate while also allowing for small flourishes of a wider world. One of the show’s directors Rhys Thomas spoke to The Ringer-Verse podcast about how Kevin Feige and Trinh Tran managed to help the show create that contained yet subtly expansive quality.
While speaking to The Ringer, Thomas was asked about whether Marvel Studios gave those working on the show existing characters and storylines they had to integrate into the story. He goes on to say, while there were some natural elements like that, a lot of the show is created without knowledge of the storyworld. Knowledge of other MCU projects would only arrive through pitching something similar to what was being produced at the time.
There’s sort of these character packets and some storylines, but they do, interestingly, I think, allow the shows to kind of exist within their own little sandbox for, you know, for quite a while. And sometimes the only way you find out about what might be happening in another show is just when you come in excitedly in the morning and pitch an idea, only to discover that it’s already happening somewhere else. And, again, that happened multiple times, where in the middle of the night, like, ‘Oh, my God, this is it. This is the thing that’s gonna fix the thing.’ And then you come in, and they’re like, ‘No, we can’t do that.’ Sometimes Kevin will be the only one that knows that. So you might even get a few tiers in and finally pitch it. And then it’s like,‘No buddy.’ That’s what you’re relying on is Trinh and Kevin. They will come in with certain things, whether it’s a character crossover, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it was always there at the beginning. That’s what’s kind of amazing about what they’re doing. It’s such a vast enterprise now, in terms of all the shows, and that, I think, it’s kind of a moving target. And they do allow room, I think, for the show’s to evolve.
Rhys Thomas
It’s fascinating that the shared storyworld aspect of the MCU is marshaled by the producers. While Trinh Tran focused on guiding Hawkeye’s writers, directors, cast and crew to make the best show it can be in a self-contained way, it’s also clear she and Kevin Feige are looking out for project crossovers. There are clearly some elements of the story that Rhys Thomas pitched that were also happening in other projects so those ideas didn’t move forward beyond. Even more fascinating still, is that some of these ideas might have made it past an initial pitch with Trinh Tran before Kevin Feige revealed something similar was happening elsewhere in the MCU. There are some interesting levels of secrets to crossover aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe! It’s intriguing to think about how Marvel Studios’ producers keep that shared momentum up, as well as what aspects of Hawkeye could exist elsewhere in the upcoming MCU.
Source: The Ringer
