Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye reached its conclusion this week, with Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton and Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop going up against multiple threats, and seemingly winning. The finale included an epic fight scene between the two heroes and several of the Tracksuit Mafia’s thugs at the Rockefeller Center. Executive Producer Rhys Thomas explains how the scene was filmed.
Every year, a massive 50-feet tall Christmas tree is installed at the Rockefeller Center. When Hawkeye set the location as New York around Christmas time, fans immediately assumed that a massive showdown would take place at the popular tourist destination. What they didn’t, however, expect is that the heroes would topple over the huge tree, with its hundreds of twinkling lights and decoration. Fret not as Thomas clarifies that it wasn’t the real tree.
The sixth and final episode of Hawkeye brought Barton and Bishop to 30 Rock for the Bishop Christmas party hosted by Eleanor. The heroes come prepared, with their fancy new costumes and trick arrows, as they are aware of Kingpin’s eventual arrival at the scene. The fight begins inside the building, but soon spills out onto the streets and the iconic ice skating rink at the venue.
Thomas has now revealed that part of the final Hawkeye episode was filmed on location during the Christmas holidays in 2020. With the ongoing pandemic, strict lockdowns were in place almost all of last year, and so it was perhaps easier for the crew to manage crowd control. However, considering the tree was going to be brought down in the episode, the final battle was shot in a soundstage in Atlanta. The tree, its iconic topper, and the ice rink were recreated with as much accuracy to maintain the consistency in the episode. “We built the ice rink and the whole bottom level of Rockefeller Center. The level of detail on the street is down to the weathering on the granite,” said Thomas in an interview with Marvel.com.
A funny bit of detail that Thomas shared is that the replica of the Rockefeller Center tree was thrown out once the filming was completed. But, unfortunately, a few scenes needed to be added for which the tree was required. So, one of the crew members had to find the tree in a dumpster located behind the soundstage. Most of the scenes with Renner’s Barton stuck in the Christmas tree were then shot with a dead tree from the dumpster. “It might be shattering the Hollywood illusion,” Thomas joked.
Hawkeye is streaming on Disney Plus.
Source: Marvel.com