Hailee Steinfeld has the offer to play Kate Bishop on the Disney+ Hawkeye TV show, but her casting has bee delayed by her deal with Apple+. Hawkeye is one of several Marvel Cinematic Universe series announced for Disney+ so far, as part of the franchise’s Phase 4. It’s due to premiere in Fall 2021 and will follow after the shows The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Loki.
The plan is for the Hawkeye TV show to pick up with Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) as he mentors and hands the Hawkeye torch over to Kate Bishop, a character from the Young Avengers Marvel comic books launched in the mid-2000s. Near the start of September, it was reported the latter role had been offered to Hailee Steinfeld of True Grit, Pitch Perfect 2, and Bumblebee fame (among other movies). Fans have even begun making art of Steinfeld as the Kate Bishop character, in anticipation of her signing on.
Variety caught up with Steinfeld at the NYC premiere of her Apple+ series, Dickinson, but she didn’t have any details to offer about the Hawkeye series and told the outlet “That, I don’t know about!” Their sources have since told them Steinfeld and her reps have the Kate Bishop offer and no other actors have been approached about the role yet. However, it’s believed the non-compete clause in her contract with Apple is responsible for the holdup on her Hawkeye deal.
While the Apple+ streaming service doesn’t go live until Friday, November 1, the company is expected to renew most of its launch day series for a second season (Dickinson and shows like Jason Momoa’s See included). If so, both Dickinson season 2 and Hawkeye season 1 would probably go into production in 2020, though obviously not at the same time if Steinfeld closes a deal to play Kate Bishop. And though her non-compete clause will complicate matters in that scenario, Steinfeld should have enough clout for her and her reps to find a way to work around that (as Variety notes in its report).
Arguably, the uncertainty about Steinfeld’s casting is the smaller of the two question marks hanging over the Hawkeye TV show’s head right now. Fans are currently calling for Marvel and Disney to recast the role of Clint Barton, in the wake of the serious allegations Renner’s ex-wife recently raised against him (including, that he threatened to kill her and left cocaine within the reach of their young daughter). There’s been no indication that Renner is in any real danger of being recast at the moment, but it’s still early days and the situation could ultimately impact when and how the Hawkeye series moves forward. As always, we will keep you posted as the story develops.
Hawkeye is set to premiere on Disney+ in Fall 2021.
Source: Variety
