Marvel Studios has dominated every field that it has set its sights on. It's been doing it with films for close to two decades, but it has recently branched out, exploring television and off-specials to go along with it. Those ventures have been mostly successful, with multiple Disney Plus shows earning critical acclaim (and even breaking that Marvel glass ceiling by earning some award nominations at the major awards ceremonies). However, the studio did spread itself too thin, which led to a general decline in quality and a waning fan enthusiasm.
Films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and shows like Secret Invasion were widely regarded as misfires that didn't generate enough audience interest to warrant their large budgets. The response to the latter in particular forced Marvel to change its approach to television and be more selective about what it produces. The endgame in mind was to cut back on quantity and increase on quality.
Now, a new update has confirmed what exactly that update might look like.
Marvel will only release one or two live-action Disney Plus shows a year
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel Studios will only be producing one or two live-action shows a year alongside two animated shows, too. Furthermore, going forward, they are less likely to feature major Avengers stars.
Speaking at the Disney / Marvel Upfronts, the studio's Head of Television and Animation Brad Winderbaum has suggested that this will allow them to follow through on their plan to make second seasons of the shows they produce, saying:
"Producing shows with marquee names, it made it really challenging to produce second seasons; the margins on TV are smaller."
That's not to say that they can't revisit some of those projects at some point in time. The most relevant one right now is Hawkeye, which starred Jeremy Renner as he reprised his role from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies (as one of the original Avengers) for the six-episode Disney Plus series in 2021. A second season of that has been rumored for the past year and it is still on the table. Renner turned it down due to only being offered half of the pay that he received for the first season but has repeatedly said that he would be open to returning if they can make it work.
That aside, it seems as if Marvel is moving away from the big-budget shows starring the MCU regulars, so that they can follow through on their plan to reduce output and focus on specific shows. But that doesn't mean that the MCU stars of the silver screen won't appear in the shows at all. As Winderbaum explains:
"Looking to the future, does it mean that we won’t have big Avengers names? No. They may not be the titular character of the show, but they can still make appearances."
Another major element in Marvel's new approach towards television is having each of the shows stand up as their own project. That original wave of miniseries featured projects that were every bit as important to the MCU's ongoing story as the Infinity Saga movies were beforehand, but because they were all multi-episode TV shows, it meant that there was more to watch as the story began moving at a slower pace.
By not having the shows be so interconnected to the overarching franchise they are part of going forward, Marvel hopes to appeal to more casual audiences, ensuring that someone can pop in for one show without having to watch all of the previous titles in the franchise (which currently stands at 36 movies and 12 shows).
That's the balance that Marvel Television looks to strike going forward, allowing a show to exist within the world of the MCU without having to be explicitly tied to the overall story.
“You should be able to watch these shows on their own, without knowing the overall MCU story... But if it’s not connected, it’s severing what makes the MCU the MCU.”
The studio employed this strategy well with Agatha All Along, which turned out to be one last year's biggest hits for Disney Plus. Although it was a spinoff of WandaVision (which was heavily tied to the MCU), its focus on characters who didn't originate in the movies - and its general witchy approach - made it easy for non-MCU fans to tune into on Halloween. It existed as part of the MCU while also existing apart from the ongoing Multiverse Saga arc.
For years, Marvel Studios produced shows as if they were movies, greenlighting miniseries from scratch. Now, the newly-formed (or, uh, reformed) Marvel Television doesn't greenlight a project until the pilot episode is written. This has led to a number of initially-planned titles being shelved, simply because they were unfeasible to turn into ongoing TV shows with multiple seasons - something that is the studio's new M.O.
The confirmation that they will be shifting to just one or two shows a year going forward is a big deal. With Daredevil: Born Again expected to be an annual show (season 2 is already set for March 2026), does that mean it will hold one of the two available release slots until it wraps up for good?
We'll have to wait and see, but this does confirm that Marvel's TV slate for next year is already set: Daredevil: Born Again season 2, Vision Quest, and The Punisher Special Presentation (alongside the second seasons of animated offerings Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and X-Men '97).