Marvel Studios Decides To Move Forward With Future Shows in a More Traditional TV Format
The upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again is one of the most anticipated TV projects that has come from Marvel. There have been other shows based in the MCU that fans have enjoyed, but this series is coming after an established three-season run of a show based on the same character, starring the same actor, that aired years ago on Netflix. So aside from the hype, this new series has a lot to live up to.
This was all taken into consideration this past June during the writers’ strike, when studio executives gathered to pause and reflect on how the series was coming along. Fewer than half of the series’ 18 episodes had been shot, but it was enough for Marvel executives, including chief Kevin Feige, to review the footage and come away with a clear-eyed assessment: The show wasn’t working.
So, in late September, Marvel quietly let go of head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman and also released the directors for the remainder of the season as part of a significant creative reboot of the series. The Hollywood Reporter writes the studio is now on the hunt for new writers and directors for the project, which stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer turned superhero.
The approach that the studio had taken in making these Marvel shows for Disney+ since 2021 was very similar to their filmmaking, in that instead of hiring showrunners, they, instead, depended on film executives to run the series, as well as relying on postproduction and reshoots to fix what wasn’t working.
But as the shows have come and gone, much of the viewership has declined, and satisfaction with the stories has also waned, causing a major shift at the studio to move to make TV shows the more traditional way.
Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation, explained to THR, “We’re trying to marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture. It comes down to, ‘How can we tell stories in television that honor what’s so great about the source material?’”
Marvel plans to keep some scenes and episodes of the show that have been shot, while scrapping the overall law procedural feel that the previous writers leaned into. Other serialized elements will be injected, with Corman and Ord becoming executive producers on the two-season series.
As it moves forward, Marvel is making concrete changes in how it makes TV. It now has plans to hire showrunners. Gao’s postproduction work on She-Hulk helped Marvel see that it would be helpful for its shows to have a creative throughline from start to finish.
The studio also plans on having full-time TV execs, rather than having executives straddle both television and film, and is revamping its development process. Showrunners will write pilots and show bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from She-Hulk to Secret Invasion, then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done.
And just as Loki, which returned Oct. 5, marked Marvel’s first season two of a series (out of nine TV shows to date), the studio plans on leaning into the idea of multiseason serialized TV, stepping away from the limited-series format that has defined it. Marvel wants to create shows that run several seasons, where characters can take time to develop relationships with the audience rather than feeling as if they are there as a setup for a big crossover event.
Some of its next shows, in fact, promise to be more personal stories. Echo, which premieres in January, is a grounded crime story with few visual effects, revolving around deaf Native American antihero Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox). Wonder Man, a show that was paused because of the writers and actors strikes, is meant to be a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood and a character study of Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a superhero who has a side gig as an actor and stuntperson.
What do you think of the changes being implemented at Marvel’s TV studios?