Marvel Changed One Major Thing About Its Disney+ TV Shows After Daredevil Drama
Marvel's TV branch saw a fair bit of turmoil in 2023, with certain shows underperforming or not receiving the critical reception their respective teams may have hoped for. The company seems to be assessing its strategy in several key areas, but the troubled development of "Daredevil: Born Again" in particular has led the studio to make a major change in how it creates new shows — and what happens to them after their initial run of episodes.
As detailed by The Hollywood Reporter in a story detailing the state of Marvel's approach to formulating Disney+ shows, one of the changes listed was that the studio would be focusing on developing multi-season series, rather than one-off miniseries. Thus far, most shows aside from the occasional exception like "Loki" or "What If...?" have run for a single season and concluded, with no further episodes or seasons officially announced. According to the outlet, Marvel is hoping to create series that last long enough for characters to connect with the audience, as opposed to shows where they mainly exist to set up crossover events.
More traditional shows are a must for Marvel
Alongside Marvel Studios' intention to lean into creating Disney+ shows that run for multiple seasons, the company is also making some other broad changes to how it develops new series. For one thing, each show will now have showrunners in charge of overseeing the project, akin to how Jessica Gao played a crucial — and continuous — role throughout the production of "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law." "It's a term we've not only grown comfortable with but also learned to embrace," Brad Winderbaum, Marvel's head of streaming, television and animation, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Overall, Marvel's intention is clear: the MCU's Disney+ series will be treated more like traditional TV shows, rather than limited series solely dedicated to pushing the greater timeline of the franchise forward. "We're trying to marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture," Winderbaum explained. "It comes down to, 'How can we tell stories in television that honor what's so great about the source material?'"
It's going to take some time until fans start to directly feel the effects of Marvel's change in approach to its Disney+ series. However, it seems that some upcoming shows will already benefit from the strategic overhaul. For instance, "Daredevil: Born Again" is already planned for two seasons instead of just one. It remains to be seen whether previous shows like "Hawkeye" or "Ms. Marvel" are revived and continued in some form as well.