John Wick creator joins writing team for Marvel’s ‘Falcon & Winter Soldier’ show

Before the end of the year, Disney will debut Disney+, its fighter in the coming inter-network cage match that is the streaming wars. There are a lot of streaming services out there already — Netflix, Hulu, the forthcoming HBO Max — but I don’t think there’s much danger of Disney failing to break into the market. It’s Disney, for crying out loud; they have a vault of content people are going to find hard to resist.

And they’re creating more. To make extra sure people adopt Disney+, the studio is making a number of limited series based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe — there’s Loki, starring Tom Hiddleston as the titular god of trickery; and WandaVision, with Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany as the Scarlett Witch and Vision respectively.

Finally, there’s Falcon & Winter Soldier, starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan as…Falcon and the Winter Soldier. They’re not crazy creative with the names. Although, if you saw Avengers: Endgame, you know that Falcon — real name Sam Wilson — became the new Captain America at the end. I assume the show will be about Sam adjusting to his new role, so maybe the show should be called Captain American 2.0 & Winter Soldier?

We’ll find out more about all that down the line. For now, we some exciting news courtesy of The Wrap: Derek Kolstad, the screenwriter best known as the mind behind the John Wick movies, has joined the writing team for Falcon & Winter Soldier. That series just got a whole lot more violent.

Or not. Disney and Marvel president Kevin Feige don’t let the MCU stories wander too far off the beaten path, and make no mistake: these new shows are part of the MCU even if they’re not on the big screen. “These will be major storylines, set within the MCU, with ramifications that will be felt both through the other Disney+ series we’re producing and our features on the big screen,” Feige told investors in April. “A post-‘Endgame’ MCU will be extremely different and extremely focused on Disney+ tying into our future movies.”

At the same time, Disney has been pretty good at letting the creative people behind its various franchises find their own voices, so long as they stay within the accepted framework. James Gunn has done a good job of carving out his own thematic and stylistic niche over on the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, for example. John Wick is a pretty earthy, gritty franchise, so Kolstad’s may be a good fit for a smaller-scale miniseries. And if we get half of the awesome fight choreography we got in the John Wick movies, he’ll be a worthy hire indeed.

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Falcon & Winter Soldier is expected to drop on Disney+ on August 2020.

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