Jeremy Renner could play Hawkeye

Avengers assemble! Really, really slowly! Marvel's masterpiece is s-l-o-w-l-y taking shape: even the lesser costumed heroes are slipping on the spandex. In the frame to play sharp-shooter Hawkeye? Mr. Hurt Locker here.

I don't envy the chaps tasked with writing The Avengers movie, because it's almost certainly going to be overlong and over-ambitious - and probably a bit cack to boot. It's a great idea in principle, and I love the way Marvel have knitted together their different characters in the same universe, but consider me wary.

While the major players are all in place - Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Beaky, Mick and Tich - there's news that lesser superheroes are also being readied to make their debut, in effect setting themselves up for the Avengers ensemble.

Empire Magazine spoke to Jeremy Renner to congratulate him for his dynamite turn in The Hurt Locker, and he let slip a little detail that'll have the fanboys foaming at the CAPS LOCK.

Good choice? I reckon so. He's the picture of intensity in The Hurt Locker, and while I can't imagine any Marvel films will ever require such levels of serious tension, he's got the physique, the credibility and the fanboy acclaim necessary to slip on Hawkeye's purple quiver. Oo-er.

That said, let's not get too excited. Hawkeye is hardly going to be a lynchpin in the Marvel universe so this will likely be a glorified cameo at best. Hawkeye seems like the friend of a friend who always turns up at their parties but you're never really sure if anyone invited him, but hey, look at that, he's really helping himself to those nachos.

PS. If you can get through this biography without sniggering, you're a bigger nerd than I.