Disney Plus has revealed that Hawkeye will premiere with two episodes when it releases on November 24 – which means its final sixth episode will no longer clash with the arrival of Star Wars series The Book of Boba Fett on December 29.
It also means that Disney Plus subscribers have an unbroken run of weekly Marvel and Star Wars shows to look forward to until early February at the very least. The streamer has traditionally avoided running big-ticket originals side-by-side, instead spacing them out over the calendar year.
This news was revealed in a brief Hawkeye TV spot, which confirmed that Linda Cardellini's Laura Barton, first shown as Clint's wife in Avengers: Age of Ultron, is part of the new show. Check that out below:
Kick off the holidays with the first two episodes of Marvel Studios' @HawkeyeOfficial, streaming November 24 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/jY5iRzyaYpOctober 14, 2021
Disney has a good reason to back-load Marvel and Star Wars content into the final months of 2021. We're coming up to the two-year anniversary of Disney Plus in the US in November – that means a lot of yearly subscriptions to the service are likely to lapse, and clearly Marvel and Star Wars remain strong pulls to keep people interested in the streamer.
Star Wars and Marvel series expected in 2022 include Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi – and maybe, at a push, The Mandalorian season 3.
Analysis: Will Hawkeye matter in the grand scheme of the MCU?
This is a busy end to the year for the MCU, with Hawkeye releasing in between Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The big difference between this show and them is it looks...funny, and like there are low stakes in play.
The thing is, though, there's a lot we don't know about the show from what we've seen so far. We haven't had a great glimpse of the show's villain, yet, which is expected to be the Swordsman, played by Tony Dalton. In addition, the character Echo – a Daredevil-originated superhero from the comics played by Alaqua Cox in this show – hasn't appeared in any of the series' promotional materials either.
In addition, a report previously suggested that Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova is expected to appear in this show – which would tie in to the Black Widow post-credits scene, which featured a direct connection to Clint Barton.
While it seems like the funnier and lighter MCU story of the year, then, which it very well could be, you can still expect this show to move some key pieces on the board.
