Is A Photoshop Trick Responsible For Claims That Jeremy Renner’s Training For The Troubled ‘Hawkeye’ Production?

After a long period of non-movement and whispers of a troubled production, reports have been spreading that Jeremy Renner started training to film Hawkeye on Disney+, which would seemingly confirm that the streaming series is still a go. The source of these latest reports is an alleged screencap from Renner’s Instagram account that first popped up on Reddit.

There’s just one small problem. This photo is nowhere to be found on Renner’s account. Also, Instagram Stories don’t include the user name and a follow button in the top left corner, but instead, the title of that specific Story. We could be wrong (Renner could have posted something and quickly deleted it), but so far, this photo smells like a fake.

Again, there hasn’t been a whole lot of official news coming out of Hawkeye, and when there has been, it hasn’t been good. For a brief moment, it looked like Hailee Steinfeld was signed on to play Kate Bishop, a young, snarky heiress who would take on the mantle of Hawkeye after training under Renner’s Clint Barton. However, Steinfeld quickly scuttled those reports.

“That’s not something that’s necessarily happening,” she said when asked her about her preparations for the part. “We’re going to wait and find out, I guess.”

Steinfeld evidently had nothing else to say about the matter, and ever since her rumored casting first made the news, neither have Marvel nor Disney, officially.

Steinfeld denied the casting rumor back in November 2019, and there’s yet to be a clarification on whether she’s in or out. The situation gets even more complicated when you factor in Renner’s ongoing custody battle, which made headlines just two months after the series was announced by Marvel Studios.

Does the fact that Steinfeld isn’t officially attached to Hawkeye and Renner’s messy court battle mean that the Disney+ series is doomed It’s a possibility, but until Marvel gives the word, the show is still on its upcoming slate. Until then, we’re going to be highly skeptical of Instagram photos that can’t be easily corroborated.