Jeremy Renner
Jeremy Renner says his character will be much more active in "Captain America: Civil War." Pictured: Renner, who plays Hawkeye in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," attended the movie's Los Angeles premiere in April. Reuters

Jeremy Renner is shaping up to be the biggest star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) following his expanded role in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Fans will see more Hawkeye in “Captain America: Civil War” in 2016 and the actor is already spilling some details about the superhero-packed sequel.

After singing a ballad about his Marvel character on “The Tonight Show,” all eyes are on Renner and his character as the studio gears up for Phase 3. While Renner has been absent from most of the film franchise thus far, he’s about to be in the two biggest MCU movies to date. Speaking with Uproxx, the 44-year-old actor revealed that he’s going to be reprising his role as the master archer very soon.

“They start shooting soon, yeah,” he said when asked about the third “Captain America” film. “I start toward the beginning of it. That’s going to be a giant movie, ‘Civil War,’ man.

It’s not much information, but it does reveal that fans will see Renner early on in the movie rather than saving the Avenger for some kind of ultimate climax. For those that are unfamiliar, “Civil War” will be based on the popular Marvel comics event of the same name. In it, a major tragedy forces the government to pass a law requiring all superheroes to have their secret identities registered. Some heroes side with Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in favor of this law and others side with Captain America (Chris Evans) fighting against it. While the comic books had decades of characters to choose from, the MCU only has a handful of recurring characters that don’t have their own movies – like Hawkeye.

It’s unclear how much screen time Hawkeye will get given that he’s stepping into an already jam-packed cast. In addition to the title character and Iron Man, the film will feature Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman). It was recently revealed that Daniel Bruhl will be introduced as comic book villain Helmut Zemo. If that’s not enough to make this standalone film bigger than “The Avengers,” it is almost a certainty that Marvel Studios will use “Civil War” to introduce its new Spider-Man as well. However, Marvel has yet to officially announce when the wall-crawler will appear ahead of his 2017 standalone film.

As CinemaBlend notes, Marvel will likely be teasing “Civil War” for several months following this weekend’s release of “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Ant-Man” in July. “Captain America: Civil War” will come next and kick off the franchise’s third phase of movies leading up to the two-part “Avengers: Infinity War,” which will be directed by the Russo brothers, who are also helming the 2016 crossover.

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