The Marvel Cinematic Universe has endured a major amount of change in the past half-decade. It all really started in 2019's Avengers: Endgame, when the Avengers' victory over Thanos came with some very extreme costs. And as the Marvel Studios franchise moved on from the Infinity Saga to the Multiverse Saga, that changed just continued to expand and evolve.
But with that experimental phase of relying on both movie and television, the MCU began to expand too rapidly, with fans finding it hard to keep up with all of the titles or simply not enjoying the overexposure to their favorite franchise. The studio has since recalibrated, changing things up after a number of missteps resulted in some underperformers. In order to do that, it reportedly had to cancel a number of projects that were in the early stages of development.
That said, Marvel is now reportedly open to the idea of reviving one of those shelved projects but in a format that might be much more suited to it.
Marvel reportedly considering reviving Nova project as a movie
Nova has been one of those characters that MCU fans have been longing to see make his presence felt on the film series for quite some time. In fact, they've been hoping that the character's introduction could have been on the horizon since 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy introduced the Nova Corps and Xandar. Over a decade later and the franchise has yet to bring him to screens. But they did get very, very close once.
After years of rumors, it was revealed that a Nova series was in development at Disney Plus. However, Marvel reportedly cancelled the project (along with two others) after it restructured its television division with new plans. Gone were the days of overly expensive miniseries that may as well have been six-part movies and back were the traditional ideas of TV that would allow the MCU to deliver cheaper, more consistent and grounded ongoing multi-season shows. Nova would have been simply too expensive for the small screen.
This is where things get interesting: According to veteran industry insider Daniel Richtman, the studio is considering reworking the planned Nova series into a movie instead. He adds that Marvel are currently weighing up whether they should produce the project - along with fellow shelved series Strange Academy - as Disney Plus shows or movies. If it opts for the former, this would result in the projects ending up back in development for the streaming service, but it seems that theatrical releases might be the more likely option at this point.
One of the reasons that Strange Academy, Nova, and Terror Inc. were all cancelled was how expensive they would have been. Ever since the studio decided to produce shows going forward through the Marvel Television banner, it has opted for lower-budget, straight-forward shows that have potenntial to return for multiple seasons. Agatha All Along is the success story that proved this could work, for the show was the cheapest MCU Disney Plus series thus far and it ultimately became one of last year's biggest hits. More expensive projects like Nova would put it under an extreme amount of pressure to succeed.
Nevertheless, it's good to know that these shelved concepts haven't gone away entirely. Ironheart has renewed interest in Strange Academy as it was clearly setting the stage for that project; if it returns in some format now, at least it would give Marvel Studios the opportunity to tell that story. The same can be said for Nova. The Richard Rider iteration is extremely popular to comic book fans so, with the right script, casting, and budget, a film focused on the character could very well bring to life the MCU story fans have been waiting over a decade for.
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