Hawkeye on Disney Plus just added a major Black Widow character, says report

Black Widow
(Image credit: Marvel Studios)

The upcoming Hawkeye series on Disney Plus – which, it was confirmed this week, will feature Hailee Steinfeld as new Hawkeye Kate Bishop – will also feature another new Marvel star, according to a new report. Florence Pugh, who's set to debut in the upcoming Black Widow movie that was meant to release this year, is involved in this new show according to a story on The Hollywood Reporter

This is the first time Pugh's involvement in the show has been mentioned by a major Hollywood industry outlet. Curiously, this reveal is casually thrown out in a report that otherwise focuses on Vera Farmiga's casting in Hawkeye as an unnamed character. 

Marvel still hasn't officially announced the cast for Hawkeye, beyond the involvement of Clint Barton himself, Jeremy Renner. In Black Widow, Pugh is playing Yelena Belova, who in the comics is another character who takes on the Black Widow mantle. 

It's largely been speculated that Pugh could replace outgoing Black Widow actress Scarlett Johansson, whose character Natasha Romanoff – spoiler alert – had an extremely unsatisfying death in Avengers: Endgame. 

Black Widow is apparently set after the film Captain America: Civil War in the MCU timeline, and is currently set to release on May 7, 2021. Hawkeye, meanwhile, has begun filming, but has no release date. We'd expect to see it in late 2021 at the earliest. 

Why is a Black Widow character appearing in Hawkeye?

Connecting the dots on Pugh's casting, we'd guess that Belova is seeking out Clint because of their mutual strong ties to Natasha Romanov. Very little is known about the Hawkeye show so far, save for the fact that it's about Barton training up this newer archer. 

It joins a whole host of shows set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that are set to come to Disney Plus – though it feels like we've been waiting a long time for them at this point. 

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, January 2021's WandaVision, Loki, Moon Knight starring Oscar Isaac, She-Hulk, Ms Marvel and a reported Nick Fury show are the others in the works. 

Samuel Roberts

Samuel is a PR Manager at game developer Frontier. Formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor, he's an expert in Marvel, Star Wars, Netflix shows and general streaming stuff. Before his stint at TechRadar, he spent six years at PC Gamer. Samuel is also the co-host of the popular Back Page podcast, in which he details the trials and tribulations of being a games magazine editor – and attempts to justify his impulsive eBay games buying binges.