The Marvel Cinematic Universe found a new place to expand when Disney+ launched and the franchise has become a major pillar of the original content available on the service. We’ve seen an incredible number of series since WandaVision debuted almost three years ago. Not everybody has been a fan of the way Marvel shows have been introduced, but one Marvel producer promises some changes that will likely make some of those fans happy.
Disney CEO Bob Iger himself says Marvel has been producing too much content in recent years. While there are still plenty of upcoming Marvel series on Disney+, it seems clear there is a plan to slow everything down.
One of the things that have set MCU series on Disney+ apart from most television is that except for Loki and the animated anthology series What If…?, we have yet to see a second season of anything. Marvel Studios producer Brad Winderbaum explained during the recent press event with Marvel's Echo cast (via Comicbook.com) that this was originally by design, as Marvel produced TV the same way it made movies. Winderbaum explained…
We've learned a lot. We produced a lot of content very quickly, and we're primarily a filmmaking company. So, you can see that our first round of shows have a very movie-like structure: they arc-out the characters by the end; they feel like a standalone limited series.
For the most part, all these MCU series haven’t just felt like limited series; that’s exactly what they’ve been. We’re not expecting additional seasons of anything that has come out in the last three years. This is a problem for anybody who truly loved any particular show because while we might see those characters again, we shouldn’t expect a WandaVision Season 2 or more from Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
However, Brad Winderbaum says that the plan for Marvel series is changing going forward, and rather than telling complete stories and moving on, the shows will act more like traditional television, with character arcs and stories being left open for the possibility of more. This will also help differentiate MCU series from the big screen movies. He continued…
Moving forward, our content is going to feel a lot more like television. It kind of drives toward the horizon; drives towards the future, and keeps people engaged for longer periods of time, in the more leaned-back setting of your living room. To set it apart, frankly, from the big, cinematic event experiences in the movie theater.
While not stated specifically, this makes it sound like more Marvel shows will be made with the intention of creating multiple seasons, rather than just going the one-and-done route. Echo may be one of the first shows to benefit from this new methodology. The show is the first of what’s being called Marvel Spotlight, a designation that indicates the show isn’t meant to be a big part of the larger MCU, and will focus on more “street level” stories. As such, Echo could be a show that could easily run multiple seasons, at its own pace, without having to worry about what else is happening in the franchise.
