'Hawkeye' director looks back at Marvel's offer to make show

Rhys Thomas has a steady experience in making a hit on Saturday Night Live. But when the offer came from Marvel for Hawkeye, his reaction was not unexpected.

Appearing at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, he said, “Hey, look, we are all ******, right?” “You get an opportunity for a bigger budget, and it’s Marvel."

The director continued, "What interested me in that show was that fans were not interested in Hawkeye because he doesn’t have any superpowers. He’s a real guy."

"The comic book they highlighted for me as a tonal reference was by Matt Fraction, and that was grounded in that kind of energy that this is a real guy who was in pain and [who was] beaten up."

"He made mistakes. It was really the story of an ordinary guy with a poor sense of self-worth," he noted.

Rhys also recalled his reaction to the idea when it was pitched to him, initially calling the series didn't "feel like Marvel" to him.

He explained, “There were no time constraints, so I got to look at [the outlines] and send my thoughts and some ideas."

"It was about three or four months in the early pandemic that I was pitching the show to Kevin Feige and the team and then, of course, it being Marvel, I came on board and they completely threw everything out they had before and we started writing the show again.”

Hawkeye is available to stream on Disney+.