Jeremy Renner’s return as Clint Barton in Hawkeye was one of the more grounded highlights of Marvel’s Disney+ era. The first season was equal parts holiday adventure and character sendoff, but it was never officially billed as the end for Renner’s Hawkeye.
Renner recently revealed that Marvel made him a lowball offer for Hawkeye Season 2, so he turned it down. he explained:
“They asked me to do Season 2, and they offered me half the money. I’m like, ‘Well, it’s going to take me twice the amount of work for half the amount of money, and eight months of my time, essentially, to do it for half the amount.’”
Renner called out what he believed may have been behind the insulting offer, which involved his near-fatal snowplow accident in 2023. he added:
“I’m like, ‘I’m sorry? Why? Did you think I’m only half the Jeremy because I got ran over? Maybe that’s why you want to pay me half of what I made on the first season.’”
Now, industry insiders have added even more fuel to the fire. Jeff Sneider, via The InSneider, suggested the lowball offer was by design:
“Marvel may have offered Renner only half his salary because they knew “he’d turn them down so they wouldn’t have to make a second season of the show.”
Then Puck’s Matt Belloni chimed in with this brutal assessment:
“Nobody tell Renner the show attracted middling viewership and costs would have come down across the board for a Season 2—that is, if execs weren’t lowballing him in the first place so they could pin the cancellation on him, not them.”
That right there might be the real crux. Renner’s a beloved fcharacter in the MCU, and Marvel avoiding a second season might look worse on them than him. If they make him the fall guy, they sidestep the PR hit of canceling a show outright.
At the time of writing, Hawkeye Season 2 hasn’t been announced, and neither Marvel nor Renner has offered any official follow-up. Regardless, it certainly seems in line with the kind of manuvering we’d see in Hollywood.
Do you think Marvel was really trying to dodge a Season 2?
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