Hawkeye Director Didn’t Know About the Show’s No Way Home ‘Crossover’

WARNING: This article contains minor spoilers for No Way Home and Hawkeye.

Talking about the connective tissue between Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye, the director of the latter was kept away from it by Marvel Studios.

Marvel Kept The Connection Under Tight Lid

Rhys Thomas, who serves as the executive producer of Hawkeye and director of the Disney+ show’s six episodes, recently sat down with Variety about the massive season finale of the series. During the conversation, a major question was hurled about the reintroduction of Kingpin, played by Vincent D’onofrio in the series. While the character did show up in the finale, he was initially teased in the penultimate episode of the first season, which coincided with No Way Home hitting in theaters and reintroducing Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock into the fold. The movie also shared a few other connections, as they happen around the same time and in the same place, however, it was the parallel return of the villain and hero from Daredevil that gave us the most connection, even if it wasn’t an explicit tie.

“The Kingpin of it all was not on the cusp when I started the show, but I feel like his presence was never far,” Thomas said of introducing the fan-favorite character. “Like, we were always circling this other ‘big bad guy,’ but there was a moment when a Marvel executive came over and said, ‘You know, this is what we’re gonna do about that.’ As far as a larger plan and a crossover with Spider-Man: No Way Home, I did not know that they would do that.”

Thomas also discussed how the bosses at Marvel know what’s happening, but they like to keep a lid on it so the creatives continue to focus on their own projects.

“They do a wonderful job at Marvel of keeping everybody quite siloed, and I think they do this for your own security,” he continued. “People seem to sort of assuming that there is this room where everything is all mapped out, but, no, they keep you kind of focused on your own show and only give you the information that they feel they need to give.”

It’s still unclear if Netflix’s Daredevil and Defenders series is part of the MCU continuity as these shows were made before Kevin Feige called the shots on the small screen. Thomas talked about how the new process is able to weave threads and characters between movies and shows.

“I learned early on that the best thing I could do about that was not to worry too much about [MCU continuity] and just try to keep doing what I could with Kate, Clint, Yelena and all of those characters to do them justice on their own show and to treat it as such,” Thomas said. “These events are only happening for them at this moment at Christmas time. Luckily, I could keep that in focus, and when the legacy stuff or the multiverse stuff needed to come in you always had someone at Marvel to help out or to at least keep an eye on it. It’s been a weird feeling stepping into the MCU as someone that had been watching like every other fan. So, as a director, when you step onto a set and you’ve got Jeremy Renner dressed in a Hawkeye costume that you’ve been helping design, and you’re introducing new characters like Echo and Kate Bishop and Jack Duquesne, and you also have to fit this in all around the holidays, it makes it all so surreal.”

Hawkeye is streaming on Disney+ while Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently in theaters.