‘Hawkeye’ Release Date Raises Questions About ‘Ms. Marvel’

This past week, Disney Plus decided it was time to finally start teasing the upcoming Hawkeye series starring Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld. That included the first official, non-spy shot image of the pair of them, but also a release date:

November 24, 2021

That’s not all that unexpected. We figured Hawkeye would be later in the year, and it’s a busy fall for Disney. It has three movies to release between now and New Year’s, Shang Chi (September 3), Eternals (November 5) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (December 17). It’s also airing What If…? on Disney Plus starting on August 11, which will end on October 13, a month or so before Hawkeye.

And yet, all of this seems to be spelling rather poor news for a series that Disney has repeatedly said will also be coming in 2021, Ms. Marvel, starring newcomer Iman Vellani.

We have heard effectively nothing about this series other than casting news for months now, and yet every time it comes up, Disney swears that it’s coming in 2021. But with the schedule the way it looks currently, it’s hard to see that happening unless Disney doubles up with Hawkeye, which will run through the end of the year.

It seems likely that Ms. Marvel is going to get booted into 2022, which may not be the worst thing, considering that there’s a pretty clear gap in time where her show could debut after Spider-Man and Hawkeye. Pretty much from January until Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness debuts on March 25, 2022, there’s empty space, a prime time for Ms. Marvel to air, and still be out well ahead of the current date for the next Captain Marvel movie, The Marvels, which is supposed to co-star Ms. Marvel after her origin story. That’s on November 11, 2022.

We do not yet have dates for the other upcoming Disney Plus shows She-Hulk and Moon Knight, both said to be coming in 2022, but likely not as early as the winter. There’s also season 2 of Loki to consider, the only Disney Plus show that is confirmed to be returning (WandaVision is not, Falcon and the Winter Soldier is transitioning into a movie, Captain America 4). I’m not sure if Hawkeye will get a second season, or turn into a full Kate Bishop show without Clint. Regardless, I’d expect Kate to stick around well past one season of the show.

Disney’s schedule has become infinitely harder to parse, given all the crossover between TV and film now. Black Widow was caught in this mess, as it was supposed to introduce Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina before she showed up in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Black Widow had to air before Hawkeye, where Yelena is supposed to appear. Complicated stuff, but perhaps things will settle down soon.

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