Why Hawkeye Didn’t Have Spider-Man or Ant-Man Cameos

Hawkeye director Rhys Thomas explains why other MCU characters like Spider-Man and Ant-Man didn’t cameo on the Disney+ series. Marvel’s eventful 2021 came to a close last week with the final episode of Hawkeye, the fourth live-action Disney+ show to emerge from the expansive franchise. Over the course of 6 episodes, Hawkeye follows Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) as he works to get back to his family in time to celebrate Christmas. Complicating matters is his new partnership with Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), which gets Clint tangled up in a murder mystery and a conflict with the Tracksuit Mafia.

While prior Disney+ shows like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki dealt with sky-high stakes like global crises and the multiverse, Hawkeye had a far more grounded conflict. Everything took place in New York City, which is the setting of the MCU’s other year-end release, Spider-Man: No Way Home. Hawkeye‘s setting and place in the overall MCU timeline led some fans to speculate that Tom Holland’s young hero could make an appearance on the show.

However, according to director Rhys Thomas, it never came up in the making of Hawkeye. Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Thomas admitted he also questioned why Spider-Man didn’t come to Clint and Kate’s aid, considering they were all within the the same city. Despite that issue being raised in his mind, it didn’t factor into the overall conversation. Thomas said:

‘I think I asked that question too, because I was just like, we’re in New York and especially in this finale, there’s a lot going down here, it feels like someone might come to help and he’s doing this all by himself.

‘But we never really talked about whether that would happen or not.’

Aside from Spider-Man, there was another MCU character who could’ve turned up in Hawkeye: Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man. Clint made use of a really clever Pym arrow, which served as a playful reference to his connection with Ant-Man. Thomas thought it would be fun to include a cameo from Rudd and even admitted he considered it. However, he said that “ultimately, we had a lot of characters in the show,” and decided to keep Hawkeye “focused to him.” Therefore, fans weren’t treated to a scene where Scott Lang turns up with more trick arrows for Clint.

While the MCU’s ability to have characters cross over at any point is a valuable trick, it can also lead to questions from fans over why particular heroes didn’t appear in certain projects. When The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s finale brought its titular duo to New York, there were similar questions about why Spider-Man didn’t swoop in and help. For Hawkeye, it does serve the story better if things are kept to just Clint and Kate – aka two heroes with no special abilities save for excellent aim. It might’ve been fun to see Spider-Man and Ant-Man offer their assistance, but this was one MCU story that was kept relatively small.

Source: Metro.co.uk

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Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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