Hailee Steinfeld Casts Doubt on Her Part in Hawkeye, so What’s Going on With the Show?

While she was never officially cast, rumors began that Dickinson star Hailee Steinfeld was gearing up to take on the bow to bring Kate Bishop to life in Hawkeye for Disney+. But, in a recent interview with RadioTimes, Steinfeld didn’t seem so sure about her placement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“That’s not something that’s necessarily happening,” Steinfeld said. “We’re going to wait and find out, I guess.” And while this may have been referring to herself in the role of Kate Bishop, my fear is more that this is referring to the show itself. Recently, Jeremy Renner has been in the news for allegedly threatening to kill his wife and himself, as reported by TMZ.

I’ve even talked about how I want him out of the MCU and the show. What I didn’t want was for the show to be canceled because of him, because if anything, Hawkeye never should have been about Clint Barton in the first place, if the show was meant to bring Kate Bishop in.

Marvel had reportedly “considered” replacing Renner, but the rumor mill on that idea has stopped recently, and now, with Steinfeld’s comments, my fear stems from the idea of tossing the whole show rather than just Renner. What’s even more interesting is that, if you do drop Clint Baron, you wouldn’t necessarily be changing much from part of Kate Bishop’s origin story.

In the comic, Kate Bishop sees Clint Barton as her role model because, like herself, he has no real superhero powers and uses her skills with a bow and arrow to be a part of the team. Within the world of the Young Avengers, Kate also uses Clint’s bow as a means of protection and takes it without it being given. So, to me, why do we even need Clint Barton in the first place? Sure, she looks up to him because her own father, who was previously her hero, is MIA from her life, but that’s easily something you can replace with any other member of the Avengers team—especially since Clint Barton has never had his own film and wasn’t even a part of Avengers: Infinity War.

But then again, the show may just go on as planned, just without Steinfeld as the lead.

Were Hailee Steinfeld’s comments just meant for her involvement as Kate Bishop? Potentially, but also, I wouldn’t put it past Marvel to delay production until they know what’s going on with Renner. To me, that isn’t fair to those who were excited about Kate Bishop getting her time. The MCU Clint Barton hasn’t really been a focal point and, to be honest, he doesn’t need to be. Hawkeye can be Kate Bishop stealing his bow, and we can learn of the, arguably, better Hawkeye from there.

(image: Marvel Entertainment)

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