It has been revealed that Marvel Studios tapped Hairspray duo Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman to write Rogers: The Musical, the fictional musical about Captain America that will be featured in the upcoming Hawkeye series.
It seems that Hawkeye's lighter, more grounded story is the perfect addition to the MCU, as first social media reactions have expressed nothing but praise. The series will focus on Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton / Hawkeye post-blip in New York City during the Holidays, as he is forced to team up with the young archer Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) to stop enemies from his past when he was Ronin in Avengers: Endgame.
According to Marvel.com, after creating music for Smash, Hairspray, and Mary Poppins Returns, the Tony award-winning duo has been keeping in touch with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige for a few years, discussing film scores and the possibility of joining the MCU. "Turns out Kevin is a film score nerd," added Shaiman. "He started talking about [the scores I've written] one by one and I was like, I cannot believe this is happening." When the opportunity to work on the new Hawkeye series became an option, the duo was more than ready to hop on board. "I guess when this idea came up for Hawkeye, for there to be a musical on Broadway, he luckily thought of us," said Shaiman, "and [Scott and I] couldn't be happier."
Now tasked with cooking up something exciting, the duo felt obligated to go back and binge all of the MCU movies as they worked on the fictional musical during the height of the pandemic. Shaiman credited his husband Lou for helping him catch up on much of the Marvel lore. "We were both lucky to have [my husband, because] he could just spit out whatever the words are like, you know, 'Tesseract." As for writing during the pandemic, the duo felt that the uncertain time was definitely an influence on their writing process. "When we were writing it was like when people would go and bang on pots and pans for the hospital workers, first responders. It all seemed to fit into the universe that we were writing to," Whittman recalled.
Shaiman further added their thoughts on fans reacting to the Hawkeye trailer and getting to hear their opinions on the fictional musical. He said, "We've worked on a lot of stuff that goes around the world, but man, there's nothing like the Marvel fans and how they look [for hidden details] and everything. It was just wonderful to see how happy they were about the musical and that they understand Marvel's sense of humor."
Created by Mad Men and Bridgerton's Jonathan Igla, Hawkeye will star Vera Farmiga as Eleanor Bishop, Kate's mother, Tony Dalton as Jack Duquesne, Barton's old mentor, Fra Free as the mercenary Kazi, Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez/Echo, a deaf character who can perfectly copy others' movements (a spin-off series about her character is already in development), and Zahn McClarnon as William Lopez, Maya's father. Hawkeye will also include other MCU newcomers like Florence Pugh's Yelena from Black Widow, as she was instructed by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to hunt down the man (Barton) she thinks is responsible for her sister's death in that film's post-credits scene.
Hawkeye premieres on Disney Plus on November 24, 2021.
Source: Marvel