Loki, Scarlet Witch & Other Marvel Heroes Will Receive Their Own TV Shows On Disney's Streaming Service

Wow, well, there’s a lot of ways to parse this one: dead characters coming back to life (in a way), the bad news of heroes not big enough to get their own movies, but good news, but popular enough to get their own series, etc. etc. But your biggest take away should be this: the future is coming and its Disney’s streaming service, a mega destination they hope to rival Netflix.

News breaks tonight that Marvel is planning on giving solo TV series to Loki and the Scarlet Witch and other Marvel superheroes on the upcoming Disney streaming service. More importantly, actors Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen are expected to reprise their role as the God of Mischief and Wanda Maximoff, respectively. The bigger quake in all this news is the presence of Kevin Feige, the President and primary producer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Up until now, the MCU on TV, whether it be ABC (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”), Netflix (“Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones”et al.), Hulu (“Runaways”) or Freeform (“Cloak and Dagger”) has exclusively been the domain of Jeph Loeb with oversite by Ike Perlmutter. Feige having domain over TV, at least with these characters on the as-yet-unnamed Disney streaming service, is a seismic shift of power over at Marvel. He’s expected to have a hands-on role in the development of the shows, and perhaps that stands to reason given these characters and the actors that play that, have been overseen by him since their inception on the big screen.

Each series is expected to have somewhat smaller sizes, six to eight episodes each. These may not be like the chintzy Marvel shows on TV; the budgets are supposed to be hefty “rivaling those of a major studio production” says Variety.

The trade says that other characters who have yet to receive their stand-alone movie will get their own series as well, but that remains to be seen who that may be (though process of elimination could mean characters like some of the Wakandans of “Black Panther,” Hawkeye, War Machine, Falcon and possibly many others).

Evidently, characters that have received their own movies, Iron Man, Captain America, etc. will not appear on these shows. Instead, the Disney streaming shows will focus on “second tier” MCU characters (Korg, please!!).

Here’s some good context from Variety about the business model which is expensive, risky and bold.

The pricey gamble with one of the crown jewels of the Disney film empire is a sign of how much the company has riding on its direct-to-consumer platform. As companies such as Netflix and Amazon continue to grow their user base, Disney is trying to find a way to establish a toehold in the streaming revolution upending Hollywood. The company has kept the details of the service close to the vest, beyond saying that it will likely cost less than Netflix and will launch at some point in late 2019. Disney has already started to unwind its licensing deals in order to put as much premium content on the platform as possible. That’s meant that the company is forfeiting billions of dollars in profit, as well as shouldering the cost of developing the technology.

Disney’s streaming channel, again, aiming for a late 2019 launch will be expected to debut with “Captain Marvel” and “Dumbo.” Part of its ambitious plans is the Disney “Star Wars” shows rumored to cost around $100 million. Some of the movie set for production on the streaming service could cost upwards of $25 million each.

So the big question on fans’ mind. What happens to “Daredevil” and the rest of the MCU characters on Netflix (the biggest of the bunch on TV and the ones that fans seem to care and obsess about most when it comes to movie/TV crossover ideas). Variety says, their insiders say “those shows will stay under Marvel TV banner with these limited series set under Marvel Studios.” In other words, what’s already on Netflix, ABC, Hulu, etc., stays under Marvel TV and anything new on the Disney streaming service is under Feige and Marvel Studios, which is, at least to me, a huge relief, given (IMO), the sub-par quality of those shows.

So Loki’s a prequel given his fate in “Avengers: Infinity War“? Does Wanda become a mutant once Disney owns 20th Century Fox and all the X-Men intellectual movie property in 2019? And who’s going to work out those complex contracts? Let the speculation begin.