Image Source: Wallpaper Flare, DeviantArt
Rhys Thomas, who serves as the director of Marvel Studios Hawkeye, while speaking with Slash Film revealed which are the Christmas movies that majorly inspired his blockbuster show, which tries to introduce the viewers to Hailee Steinfeld’s superhero character Kate Bishop and explore her journey of becoming the female version of Hawkeye, to protect the planet from the bad guys. Based around Clint Barton and his pupil Bishop, the Marvel show takes place during the holiday season, implying that the fans get to see both the heroes suiting up on Christmas to take them on a street-level adventure, which makes it even more interesting if it wasn’t already.
Speaking with Slash Film Thomas spoke how films like John McTiermn directed 1988’s ‘Die Hard’ and 1980’s American comedy ‘Home Alone' became a great inspiration for the Marvel show as these films are also set around the time of Christmas and provide the same kind of buddy-cop adventure to audiences. The Marvel producer also noted that Matt’s comic book run was also a source of inspiration for him during the making of the Disney+ series.
"Yeah, I sort of took from [Matt] Fraction [and his comic book run.] I really enjoyed the kind of '70s New York texture that he had,'' shared Thomas. "A lot of references, sort of early on when I started pulling images and sharing them with my director of photography, Eric Steelberg, came from everything. From 'Klute' and, I remember, 'Thief' was one and 'Point Blank.' But then 'Léon: The Professional' was a big one when we started defining textures. Obviously, you could go back to the French New Wave as well. So that's the pretentious answer,” Thomas said to Slash film in of his latest interview, explaining that a huge part of the show is inspired from Matt Fraction’s comic book series Hawkeye, which was released in 2012-2015, and as the name suggests, the greatest Marvel sharpshooter is the main focus of the comic book run.
"But ultimately, it was really just trying to find portraits of New York and portraits of people that just had a grounded quality to them and that had a real texture of New York as well. And sort of looking at the way that New York is shown in those and an approach to action too. I would also say, on Christmas level, 'Die Hard' and 'Home Alone' were also that," he added, elaborating that while action aspects of the Marvel shows were hugely inspired by Matt Fraction’s comic book run, the Christmas aspect of Hawkeye resembles and is based on ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Home Alone’ theme.
Having been insipired by ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Home Alone,’ the Disney+ series storyline takes place after the events of studios 2019’s epic blockbuster Avengers Endgame, where Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton has finally decided to move forward leaving his past behind with Avengers of which he was an important member of, to happily live with his family and in the way he is forced to team-up with Steinfeld’s Kate in order to take on some street guys. As the show moves ahead, the fans will get to the evolvement of Clint’s and Kate’s relationship as previously shared by Steinfeld. “I would agree. It was very fun, figuring out, as we were going, the evolution of this dynamic and this relationship. There’s a really true friendship there and an understanding. Kate sees Clint as someone, despite his past, who wants to do good and wants to help people, and that’s all she wants to do in life. She’s inspired by him and motivated by him and wants to be at his level, and is very over-eager. He puts up with a lot, but she really delivers, at the end of the day.”
Along with Jeremy Renner in the role of Hawkeye aka Clint Barton, and Hailee Steinfeld in the role of Kate Bishop, other cast members of Marvel Studios latest addition in the superhero-based franchise has Tony Dalton in the role of Jack Duquesne, Zahn McClarnon in the role of William Lopez, Brian d'Arcy James, Alaqua Cox in the role of Maya Lopez also known as Echo, Florence Pugh in the role of Yelena Belova also know as Black Widow, will also mark her cameo appearance in the show, connecting it to Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Black Widow’ post-credit scene, while the actress will make her appearance but as of now, it is not clear if she would be the bad guy as rumors earlier suggested or the good guy.
Currently, only two episodes of Hawkeye has been released on Disney’s own version of Netflix, Disney+ and both of them are available to stream on the video service platform, rest of the episodes will subsequently be premiered till the end of 2021, making it one of the enjoyable years for Marvel fans, inspite of the Coronavirus Pandemic’s impact, which delayed some of its upcoming projects, as they got to see a total of five shows which is itself a lot even if one excludes the main selling point of the franchise which is its films-including Black Widow, Shang-Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings.
