We still don't know how Marvel Studios decides what should be a movie and which stories are better suited to the small screen on Disney+, but it's worked out well for them so far! The story of Clint Barton meeting Kate Bishop for the first time could have made for a great big screen adventure (especially given what a star Hailee Steinfeld is), so what led to it finding a place on the streaming service?
During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hawkeye executive producer Trin Tranh shed some light on why Marvel Studios opted for a six-part series instead of a two-hour movie.
"We decided to move Hawkeye from the feature side over to the Disney+ side for [creative flexibility]," Tran explained. "The big question was, ‘How are we going to fit all of this into a two-hour timeframe? We have an Avenger whose backstory we haven’t quite had time to explore yet. We also have to introduce a new character [Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop], as well as allow enough time for them to bond and create that special dynamic that everybody finds so appealing in the comics.’"
"So, in moving it over, it allowed us six hours, three times as much time, which really gave us the creative flexibility we needed to tell the story," she added, revealing the benefits a TV series presents.
It's certainly a good approach by Marvel Studios to give these stories time to breathe, and while it felt like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was treading water at times, there's no way the likes of Loki and WandaVision could have told their stories effectively over the course of just two hours.
Hawkeye arrives on Disney+ with its first two episodes on November 24.