Marvel’s Shifting Attitude Revealed Towards Jeremy Renner’s ‘Hawkeye’

Hawkeye’s future inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been uncertain for months. Salary disputes, shifting priorities, and silence around upcoming Avengers films have all raised questions about whether Clint Barton’s story is finished.

Those doubts intensified after Jeremy Renner publicly alleged that Disney offered him significantly less money to return. The comments reframed Hawkeye not as a quiet success, but as a project caught in the middle of Marvel’s changing strategy.

Only later did another piece of the puzzle emerge. A recent podcast appearance revealed that the Disney+ series itself was nearly rebuilt at the last possible moment, suggesting its on-screen calm masked a far more unstable production.

Together, those developments place Hawkeye at a turning point — both for the character and for how Marvel approached its early streaming slate.

‘Hawkeye’ Future at a Crossroads

Renner addressed his potential return during an interview with High Performance, claiming Disney offered him “half” of the salary he received for the show’s first season.

“I’m like, ‘Well, it’s going to take me twice the amount of work for half the amount of money, and eight months of my time, essentially, to do it for half the amount,’” Renner said.

The remarks followed his January 2023 accident, when he was crushed by a 14,330-pound snowplow and required extensive rehabilitation. Renner has since returned to work, but negotiations around Hawkeye appear to have stalled.

In January, industry insider @JamesMackwl claimed Marvel is developing a second season of Hawkeye with Kate Bishop as the lead. The season was described as a “definitive send-off” for Clint Barton and Renner.

Marvel has not confirmed the report. Renner was also absent from the announced cast list for Avengers: Doomsday, though the studio is known to withhold major reveals.

With Avengers: Secret Wars still ahead — and possibly split into two films — Barton’s status remains unresolved. That uncertainty now looks increasingly tied to how Hawkeye was made in the first place.

‘Hawkeye’ Series Rebuilt Under Pressure

Speaking on The Watch podcast, writer Andrew Guest said Avengers: Doomsday co-director Joe Russo — a former collaborator from Community — personally called to ask if he could help shape the Clint Barton and Kate Bishop storyline.

Guest said events moved quickly. “[Trinh Tran] calls me three minutes later,” he recalled, explaining that he was sent six completed episodes and told production would begin in New York in just over a week, with plans to “rewrite the whole thing.”

The timing placed Guest at the very end of the development cycle. He said he joined after multiple rewrites and a full writers’ room process, calling himself “literally the last call they could make.”

Guest described a production philosophy centered on speed. The belief, he said, was that the series could be “fix[ed] as we go,” even as cameras prepared to roll.

He identified several creative problems. Kate Bishop was “written too young,” he said, and the chemistry between Hailee Steinfeld and Jeremy Renner “wasn’t there” in early drafts.

The plot itself had grown unwieldy. Guest said the accumulation of twists was “gumming up the works,” complicating the show’s emotional focus.

Despite the circumstances, Guest emphasized cooperation. “I needed their help as much as they needed mine. And we got through that process,” he said.

The experience strengthened Guest’s standing at Marvel. He was later hired as head writer on Wonder Man, a project that advanced briefly before being halted.

That halt came during the 2023 Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which paused productions across Hollywood and prompted internal reassessments.

At Marvel, the pause marked a shift. The studio began stepping away from its earlier “fix-it-in-post” approach to television development.

That change became most visible with Daredevil: Born Again, which underwent a significant creative overhaul mid-production after internal concerns surfaced.

Hawkeye now reads differently in hindsight — not as a low-key experiment, but as a warning sign. Its rushed rebuild, unresolved future, and lingering disputes reflect a studio learning, sometimes painfully, how to manage television at blockbuster scale.

Off-screen, Renner’s profile has grown more complicated. Chinese filmmaker Yi Zhou has accused him of sending “unwanted/unsolicited” explicit images and later threatening to contact immigration authorities.

Renner’s representatives have denied the allegations. His attorney has called the claims “false, outrageous and highly defamatory.”

Cease-and-desist letters have been exchanged, and the dispute remains ongoing.

Do you think Jeremy Renner should return as Clint Barton/Hawkeye?