For over a decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was the hottest thing on the big screen. Marvel Studios developed a house style that gave audiences a bit of everything: drama, comedy, action and a stinger for the next thing at the end. Sure, a lot of the movies felt a little same-y, but the formula worked, turning the MCU into the most successful movie franchise in history.
Come 2021, Marvel Studios launched its first TV show, WandaVision, on Disney+, and history seemed like it was going to repeat itself. People loved watching a Marvel story in a different format.
But after that, things seemed to fall off. It’s not that all of the Marvel TV shows to follow – The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, etc. – were bad, but people certainly weren’t talking about them as much. And interest seemed to wane further with each new show. The latest series, Secret Invasion, represented a nadir. Did anybody love that one?
Well, it ends up there’s a reason for all this. The Hollywood Reporter published a great new article that explores what’s gone wrong behind the scenes of the Marvel Television Universe. Let’s go in.
Marvel does TV its own way, for better or worse
Basically, it ends up that the Marvel movie formula doesn’t work nearly as well when applied to TV. According to THR, Marvel shows don’t have showrunners like normal TV shows do. Instead, the series depend on film executives to run things. If something’s not working on set, Marvel prefers to fix it with reshoots or in post-production later, just as it does with the movies. Marvel doesn’t make pilot episodes but rather orders shows straight to series.
All of this creates a lot of confusion and disorganization behind the scenes that pleases pretty much no one. “TV is a writer-driven medium. Marvel is a Marvel-driven medium,” said one source. “The whole ‘fix it in post’ attitude makes it feel like a director doesn’t matter sometimes,” said another.
What happened on the set of Secret Invasion is a good example of how this method doesn’t work. First Marvel hired writer Kyle Bradstreet to work on scripts, which he did for about a year. Then Marvel decided to go in a new direction, so it fired Bradstreet and hired writer Brian Tucker. Thomas Bezucha and Ali Selim came on board as directors and to help crack the story. Without a showrunner around to provide a clear unified vision, factions formed and things got chaotic. “It was weeks of people not getting along, and it erupted,” said an insider. By the time things got rolling, a good amount of the team had been replaced, Bezucha had left, and the show turned out…well, if you watched, you know.
Another example is She-Hulk. That show was developed and written by Jessica Gao, who was “sidelined” during production when Marvel hired director Kat Coiro. But then Gao was brought back in to oversee postproduction. Usually, a showrunner would oversee all of this. Typical for Marvel, She-Hulk wasn’t bad, exactly, but did feel kinda middle-of-the-road.
Marvel goes back to the drawing board on Daredevil: Born Again
The bad news is that these problems continue. After production on Daredevil: Born Again shut down because of the writers strike, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige had a chance to look at what had been done so far, and he did not like what he saw. Apparently writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman had created a legal procedural show that didn’t bear much resemblance to the original Netflix Daredevil show, which featured a lot of action. Lead actor Charlie Cox, who’s reprising his role from that Netflix show, doesn’t even appear in costume as the superhero Daredevil until the fourth episode. Marvel is now planning to revamp the show with new writers.
The good news is that Marvel is finally learning from these mistakes. For instance, they’re going to start making pilot episodes to avoid situations where, oh I don’t know, they spend tens of millions of dollars making a show only to realize halfway through it’s not the kind of show they want to make. They’re going to have TV executives oversee projects rather than just having film execs pull double duty. And they’re going to hire showrunners who will write show bibles ahead of time. “ a term we’ve not only grown comfortable with but also learned to embrace,” said Marvel executive Brad Wilderbaum.
Marvel will also focus more on developing long-lasting TV series that run for multiple seasons rather than hopping from one miniseries to the next. Loki, which is airing its second season right now, could be a good proving ground for that. “ beyond the fact that it ties into or if they are going to be in a movie or if it is setting up an Avengers film,” Wilderbaum said.
A lot of this is hilariously frustrating to hear, because…of course you should have showrunners work on your TV shows. Of course you should have people who know TV oversee TV. Of course series should be fun to watch on their own without requiring the audience to do homework. It’s wild to hear folks like Wilderbaum talk as though he’s just now realizing this stuff.
But as long as it results in more interesting TV shows in the long run, I’ll be happy. We’ll probably be waiting a while for the course correction, though. In the meantime, new episodes of Loki drop Thursday nights on Disney+.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels