Hawkeye Screenwriter Talks “Overhauled” Production Process

Screenwriter Andrew Guest took to The Watch Podcast to share his experience with the Marvel Hawkeye series, starring Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld.

“I got a call. I know Joe Russo ( who co-directed Avengers: Doomsday) from having worked with him many years on Community,” Guest explained on the pod.“He called me on the Sunday before Thanksgiving week of 2020. So it was lockdown. He knew I was home. It was the week going into Thanksgiving. Everyone’s quiet. Everything’s quiet.”. 

Co-guest Joe Russo then took a moment to mention executive producer Trinh Tran, known for heling out massively with expanding the MCU, to which Guest jumped off of. 

“And [Tran] calls me three minutes later. She says, ‘I’m going to send you six one-hour episodes’” Guest continued. “‘I want to meet tomorrow to talk about it. We start shooting in New York in a week and a half, and we want to rewrite the whole thing.”

Guest then adds he “came in towards the end” and, following several already made rewrites, felt he was “literally the last call they could make to anybody.” He also mentioned how such huge set pieces made by the company oversee major pre-planning with newly brought on writers being hired to connect any loose ends, as “When things are not working as well…they want to make sure they shoot something and that they actually make it.”

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He then summarised that “…the case with Hawkeye” was that “there is this belief that we can ‘Fix it as we go,’ resulting in “a lot of extra twists and turns that were sort of gumming up the works.” 

Following emphasis on “working around the clock” and being “very hands on with this project,” Guest concluded: “I needed their help as much as they needed mine. And we got through that process.”

Marvel’s Hawkeye debuted on Disney+ in November 2021 as a follow-up on Hawkeye’s adventures following Avengers: Endgame in 2019, and comes in the fourth stage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A spin-off series titled Echo aired in January 2024.