Hawkeye on Disney Plus starts filming – and casts Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop

Hawkeye Disney Plus
(Image credit: Disney Plus/Marvel Studios)

Hawkeye, the long-awaited Disney Plus TV show starring Jeremy Renner, has begun filming. The show is about Clint Barton (Renner) mentoring a newer Hawkeye, Kate Bishop – who, it's now been confirmed by set photos to be actress Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Bumblebee). That's been long rumored, but never confirmed by Marvel.

First up, Renner posted a picture on his Twitter account, confirming that he was filming, and mentioning Bishop's character.

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Then, Steinfeld was pictured on-set sporting a classic Kate Bishop Hawkeye look:

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You'll notice that one of those photos also features a dog. That's a reference to a very popular and acclaimed Hawkeye comic book that ran from 2013, by writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja. In that book, Clint saves a dog from some wrong 'uns, then adopts him. He likes pizza – hence, he's informally called Pizza Dog among fans of that book (his real name is Lucky).

Clearly, Marvel is taking inspiration from great sources once again – which bodes well for this new show, which doesn't have a release date yet, but is expected sometime in late 2021. 

Perfect casting

Steinfeld definitely looks the part as the younger Hawkeye – it'll be interesting to see how the show creates a mentorship between Renner's Hawkeye and her character. In the comic book, Barton was a down-and-out loser living in an apartment block, but the MCU version gave him a family. He's also still recovering from going on a killing spree in Avengers: Endgame, so he has a fair amount of baggage. 

It's weird to think of that same Barton now training a young woman who's similarly talented with a bow and arrow. But hey, hopefully they'll make it work. Jonathan Igla (Mad Men) is the show's head writer. 

Samuel Roberts

Samuel is a PR Manager at game developer Frontier. Formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor, he's an expert in Marvel, Star Wars, Netflix shows and general streaming stuff. Before his stint at TechRadar, he spent six years at PC Gamer. Samuel is also the co-host of the popular Back Page podcast, in which he details the trials and tribulations of being a games magazine editor – and attempts to justify his impulsive eBay games buying binges.