While just about every dusted victim of Thanos's Infinity War snap returned in Avengers: Endgame , the consequences of the Mad Titan's actions will ripple throughout the MCU for phases to come.
One of the more shocking moments of Endgame saw a five-year time jump just 20 minutes into the film's runtime. Despite carrying out a somewhat flawless time heist and executing a duo of Infinity Gauntlet snaps, the time jump persisted as one of the few permanent consequences of Thanos's decimation. Well, also Black Widow's Vormir sacrifice. And Vision's deactivation. That purple guy really left a mess, didn't he?
REPORT
A new batch of unofficial Hawkeye set photos has seemingly confirmed yet another (brief) MCU time jump.
The new images showcase Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton alongside both Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop and Lucky the Pizza Dog in Chinatown, New York. The most noteworthy new information of these pictures comes in the form of a window sign that wishes civilians a “Happy New Year! 2025."
WHAT THIS MEANS
This "New Year 2025" sign may come as a bit of a surprise, but let's note where the MCU is at this point.
The events of Avengers: Endgame wrapped up the Infinity Saga's 15 canonical year journey in 2023. Up until the five-year-jump, the MCU largely operated in real-time, setting their movies in the same year of their release ( The Avengers was both set in and released in 2012). Phase 3 has seen a couple of jumps here and there, notably with Captain Marvel taking place entirely in the 1990s and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 taking place a "few months" after the 2014 original, despite releasing in 2017.
With this image, the Hawkeye series looks to be a linear addition to the MCU's Phase 4. Considering it is shooting now, it will likely release at some point in late 2021. While next year is 2021 in our real world, it will be canonically 2024 in the MCU. With recent set pictures revealing that part of this show will take place during Christmas time , it makes sense that we would see a New Year's episode within its debut season.
This New Year's tidbit might also suggest a winter 2021-22 release schedule for Hawkeye . Before it was delayed due to pandemic precautions, WandaVision was slated to arrive on Disney+ screens in Fall 2020. As we know from trailers and images, some WandaVision episodes will take place during Halloween . While Marvel Studios decided to push Elizabeth Olsen's solo series to January 2021 , it is likely that its original release would have seen their holiday episode drop during the real world's spooky season.
Considering the entertainment industry has largely adapted to producing content within COVID-19 guidelines, if Hawkeye is able to wrap filming on time, we could be looking at a December 2021, January 2022 release schedule for the archer's series.
Hawkeye is tentatively scheduled to release on Disney+ sometime in 2021.
