Rhys Thomas, director and executive producer of Disney+’s upcoming Hawkeye series, aims to contrast the arrow-slinging holiday adventures of Clint Barton and Kate Bishop against an authentic and grounded New York City backdrop.
“New York is very special to me,” Thomas commented in a press conference attended by CBR. “I think I was kind of a tyrant about being as true to New York as we could.” Though the Welsh director hails from across the pond in Europe, his background in the entertainment industry is strongly linked to the Big Apple.
As a producer and director on Saturday Night Live, Thomas contributed work to over 200 episodes of the New York sketch comedy program. Additional NYC-centric entries in Thomas’ directorial filmography include Staten Island Summer, John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch and an episode of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Thomas’ passion for New York, as well as his connections to some of the city’s biggest comedy stars, is evident throughout his career.
In Hawkeye, Thomas will be able to showcase his love for the city with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s finest archers rather than his usual crew of NYC-based comedians. Thomas is credited with directing the first two episodes of Hawkeye in addition to the finale. Bert, another director on Hawkeye and one half of the duo Bert and Bertie, has likewise teased that the Disney+ series will deliver a fun holiday romp through New York. “It’s an absurd Christmas story,” she said earlier this month.
Locations central to NYC iconography, particularly during the holiday season, such as Broadway, the Empire State Building and Central Park, can be spotted in Hawkeye‘s series trailer. Rogers, the show’s apparent Hamilton-parody musical about Captain America, has piqued fans’ interest as it alludes to the Avengers’ impact on elements of New York’s recognizable cityscape. Later in the trailer, Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld’s Clint and Kate appear to engage in a climactic battle on the ice at Rockefeller Center, a location intimately familiar to SNL alum Thomas, who worked there for over a decade.
“Nothing bugs me more than fake geography in movies and fake texture,” Thomas remarked about the need to shoot Hawkeye on location in NYC. The director emphasized that the holiday setting of the series further necessitated showing an authentic, lived-in New York.
Disney+ hasn’t shied away from the fact that many key elements of Hawkeye have taken direct inspiration and adaptation from Matt Fraction and David Aja’s beloved comic run. The writer-artist duo likewise expressed their love for the many textures of NYC in the Marvel NOW! series, which saw Clint Barton living humbly in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood.
Fans can catch Clint Barton and Kate Bishop traipsing through Thomas’ New York when Hawkeye drops Nov. 24 on Disney+.
Source: Hawkeye Press Conference
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