A lot of news blasted out of D23, but one thing that wasn’t mentioned much: future live action series for the MCU. October’s VisionQuestis the last announced Marvel series for Disney+, and nothing has been spotted in the pipeline. Even last year, Kevin Feige was saying they needed to slow production because they had overexposed the characters;
After “Endgame,” Feige said the company entered into a period of “experimentation” and “evolution” of the kinds of movies it was making, leading to projects like “Eternals” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” “I’ve always thought if you take success and don’t experiment with it and don’t risk with it, then it’s not worth it,” he said. “What we also ended up focusing on because of Disney+ was expansion — and it’s that expansion that I think led people to say, ‘It used to be fun, but now do I have to know everything about all of these?’”
While watching Marvel TV shows was all we had to do during the early pandemic, soon it was too much. Although production has slowed, absence hasn’t necessarily made the heat grow fonder: Daredevil: Born Againseason two failed to chart, and Wonder Man was a critical and audience hit, it still got cancelled.
Still, as the spectacular performance of Spider Brand New Day and anticipation for Doomsday shows, people still like some MCU. And a new report suggests that they haven’t given up on live action TV. Writing for Puck (sub required) Julia Alexander says the development flywheel is still a churning:
Among all the news coming out of D23, the biennial event where Disney superfans pay hundreds of dollars to watch trailers, it didn’t escape notice that not a single new Marvel show was announced for Disney+. “I guess our plan is just Spider-Man!” one executive texted me on Sunday, half-kidding. In fact, I’ve learned that there are multiple live-action Marvel series in development for Disney+, with announcements expected soon. Integrating a new batch of X-Men characters set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, and expanding the theatrical universe further with new characters, like Marvel’s Nova, which is currently in development, may bleed into the streamer’s franchise strategy. But the slowdown does raise questions about Marvel’s larger strategy post-Doomsday and October’s VisionQuest, the one new Marvel series currently slated for release.
A Nova project has been kicking around for a while, but the latest report was as a movie
Alexander writes that part of the problem is that these shows just play to the established fanbase without drawing a new audience:
And what streamers need now more than ever is wider reach. Lanterns might buck that trend. But the era of big-budget, niche swings is ending. Why spend $50 million on a show that delights only fans who were already subscribed, and who were never going to cancel in the first place?
Whither Lanterns indeed – the extremely grounded take seems to have drawn in audiences who aren’t experts in Oa, but its future is still in question. What would draw new audiences to the MCU on Disney+? I’s hard to say because the franchise itself has reached almost universal saturation point in world culture. High-Q young actors exploring the world of the X-men? Maybe, but there is so much of everything now.
Once we moved past the the captive audience of the pandemic, most MCU shows on Disney+ were just more from the same all you can eat buffet. Maybe a major reinvention of style (like Lanterns) or some radical genre crossing could cut through the noise, but Marvel Studios hasn’t shown much aptitude for that.
Alexander writes that all of this raises wider questions about the future of superheroes in media themselves but…let’s be real. They are here for keeps. Eventually Feige’s MCU will fade away, but just like with the X-Men and Spider-Man, give it 20 years and the world will be ready for a new take on these beloved characters
