Why Marvel Won't Give Hawkeye A Movie

Renner has been around the Marvel machine for awhile now, and he was famously unhappy with his role in The Avengers. The actor was vocally outspoken about how his character was largely underutilized, and considering he spent most of the movie mindlessly brainwashed and working for Loki, it's hard to argue his point. But he's warmed to his superhero role in the years since: Renner was reportedly happy with his character getting some attention in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and he said in a recent Reddit AMA that he would "be game" if Marvel was ever interested in actually making a solo movie. But it's still worth noting that he's seemed fickle about playing the character at times, and has already been in the role for the better part of a decade.

That said, it would absolutely make one heck of a great Netflix series. Of course, there are a lot of logistical problems with pulling that off (mostly the fact that the MCU version of Hawkeye has a family and lives on a farm, as opposed to being single and living in an apartment). But fans have been pushing for Marvel to consider this arc for a TV series for years, and even Renner has said he might be open to reprising the character for a limited TV series run if Marvel could nail down the right story. Fraction's run was a smaller story and checks those boxes, and would certainly be better suited for TV than the box office. There are a lot of hoops to jump through, obviously, but the humor and drama of Fraction's Hawkeye run would be perfectly suited to the Netflix model.

Hawkeye has been around the comic world for decades, and along the way he's played key roles in a lot of fantastic stories. He's died and been resurrected, he's taken on the mantle of super ninja Ronin, he's killed the Hulk (in Marvel Comics' recent Civil War II arc), and we've already mentioned Fraction's take on the character. But looking to the world Marvel has built with its connected universe, a lot of those stories wouldn't really work in this setting. Marvel's big-screen universe has slowly diverged from the comics (much like The Walking Dead has changed between mediums over the years), and it makes it harder to tell those stories in a faithful way.

Use Captain America: Civil War as an example. Yes, it pitted hero against here, but it was almost a completely different version of the story than the comics event that inspired it. It was also fantastic, which shows there's no shame in changing these stories for the film world, but it means most potential Hawkeye stories would need some wholesale tweaks to work.

Look, no offense to all the archer heroes in the Marvel and DC universes. Green Arrow is awesome, as the CW's long-running TV series Arrow has proven over the past half-decade. Hawkeye is also one heck of a great hero, but building a blockbuster around a guy who fights bad guys with a bow and arrow? That's a tough sell. An Iron Man movie makes sense—he's a guy who flies around in a cool suit of armor. A Thor movie makes sense—he flies around the cosmos and bashes bad guys with a hammer. Hawkeye shoots arrows, with amazing accuracy. That's cool, sure, but just not on the same level. There's a reason DC decided to turn Green Arrow into a TV series: that skill set just seems better suited for a smaller scale.

A big part of the MCU's version of Clint Barton is closely tied to his friendship with Black Widow, and it'd be strange to have him spin off in a solo movie that doesn't feature her. Along with a solo Black Widow movie, fans have also lobbied for a Black Widow and Hawkeye team-up film, but Marvel has never shown much interest in actually making one. But if The Avengers and Captain America: Civil War have shown us anything, it's that Hawkeye needs Black Widow as a foil. They have the best jokes with one another, and as we saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron, they're extremely close. It would be fairly hard to explain away Black Widow's absence in any Hawkeye story important enough to actually warrant its own movie.

If Marvel really wanted to get creative, the studio could put Barton on the bench and introduce the younger Hawkeye in the comic universe: Kate Bishop. Kate was introduced in 2005 in Marvel Comics' Young Avengers run, and took up the Hawkeye mantle in 2006. Over the past decade she's become a close friend and protégé to Clint Barton, and she's arguably a better archer. Kate has run around with the Young Avengers for most of her tenure, but Fraction's Hawkeye comic run sent her off to California to work as a private eye and a new Hawkeye comic, focused on Kate, is set to continue that story. If Marvel was looking to shake things up, a hard-boiled, West Coast private eye story starring Kate Bishop would be a creative swing. There's just one problem: Outside of avid comic readers, she isn't a hugely popular character. Her status is on the rise, but it'd still be a stretch. Considering we're still waiting on Marvel to officially give us a Spider-Man film starring Miles Morales, you'd think we sadly still have a long way to go until Kate Bishop gets a shot at big-screen glory.