Hawkeye capped off a year of Marvel projects with a bang this week as the series aired its sixth and final episode. The Disney+ series has been an exciting one for fans as they got better insight into Jeremy Renner's original Avenger Clint Barton and his new protege Kate Bishop, played by Marvel newcomer Hailee Steinfeld.
The series follows Barton's journey to recover his lost Ronin suit and return to his family in time for Christmas. While the quest seems like a simple one the journey has been made infinitely more complicated by the many foes who are after Barton, including the Tracksuit Mafia, Maya Lopez, and Florence Pugh's Black Widow assassin Yelena Belova.
Hawkeye is considered one of the more grounded Marvel series that has been released on Disney+ and takes place entirely in New York City. This has seen many New York landmarks like the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree appear in the show as well as a brand new Marvel-themed Broadway show titled Rogers: The Musical which was created specifically for Hawkeye.
Now that Hawkeye has finished up, one of the series' directors has commented on the special part Rogers: The Musical had to play in the final episode.
Hawkeye Director Explains 'Fun' Post-Credits Scene
Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Episode 6 of Hawkeye.
Rhys Thomas, who directed three episodes of Hawkeye, including the finale, told Collider how the series' post-credits sequence came together.
Thomas said that he "was not aware" that a full rendition of the song from Rogers: The Musical would become Hawkeye's mid-credits sequence.
"I was not aware. It wasn't planned that that was going to be the way that the show was going to close. I was actually a little in the dark too. I was curious, like, "Is this slot going to be reserved for teeing something else up?" In the tradition that Marvel's known for. I was waiting for what that was going to be."
The director said that he was "slightly conflicted" about the mid-credits sequence and worried if it would "'disappoint'" fans:
"Yeah, they made the decision to put the musical at the end there, which honestly, I was slightly conflicted about because like a fan, I'm like, "The people, they want to see something, they want to know what's coming next. Is this going to disappoint?" In all fairness again, to the team, it's like, no, no, no, it's Christmas, it's light. We've got so much blood in this episode, it's just fun. It's a fun release at the end, and it's a nice way to send people off."
Thomas said the musical sequence was filmed in its entirety for use in Episode 1 but that the mid-credits scene was "an evolution of that."
Obviously, when we shot it for Episode 1, we shot the entire thing, but obviously in Episode 1, the focus was Jeremy and less of the performance. It was [an] evolution of that.
Hawkeye Could Do This All Day
Marvel projects are famous for their mid and post-credit sequences which typically tease fans with future projects or feature fun interactions between characters. While many were likely hoping for news on one of Marvel's upcoming Disney+ series in Hawkeye's post-credits scene, the Rogers: The Musical song was definitely aimed more at the 'fun' side of things.
Rogers: The Musical was given plenty of publicity in the lead-up to Hawkeye's release and many were excited to see what a biographical Hamilton-style musical in the Marvel world would look like. Fans were finally able to enjoy all the hard work that went into the musical number with the song and dance sequence featured in full during the credits of Hawkeye. The musical clearly made its mark on the Marvel universe and was even featured in the recently released Spider-Man: No Way Home.
While Hawkeye's post-credits scenes didn't give any clues as to whether audiences will see these characters again, there are still plenty of storylines that could be featured in a potential second season. Kate Bishop joins a long list of new Marvel characters that seem destined to join up in a Young Avengers-style project at some point. The fate of Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin was also left open-ended, but with Maya Lopez getting her own Disney+ series in Echo, it's possible Marvel isn't done with the fan-favorite character just yet. Perhaps we'll find out in a future post-credits scene.
All episodes of Hawkeye are streaming on Disney+ now.
