When you think about “Marvel” as a film/TV brand, your mind automatically thinks of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, you’d be missing out on the other half of that proposition, which includes Marvel TV, run by Jeph Loeb. Unlike his big-screen cohort, Marvel TV isn’t run by Feige and instead sees Loeb take the reins on what is the little brother of the MCU. And sadly, things haven’t been going so well for Marvel TV.
The biggest blow of 2019 came when Netflix made short work of the multitude of Marvel TV series that the streaming service was creating, including “Daredevil,” “Luke Cage,” “Jessica Jones,” “Iron Fist,” “The Punisher,” and “The Defenders,” effectively decimating the output that the TV studio had over the course of a matter of months. And according to Loeb, that blow might have hurt and came out of nowhere, but that isn’t deterring Marvel TV from expanding on new streaming ventures, with new, Disney-owned partners.
Speaking to Deadline, Loeb confirmed that the decision by Netflix to cut ties with Marvel TV not only came as a surprise, but that shock was compounded by the fact that he wasn’t ready to announce the future TV projects. So, it appeared that Marvel TV was being effectively shut down.
“The hardest part was while the situation at Netflix of which I really can’t go into other than to say that we were blindsided and the things that were to come weren’t finished yet,” said Loeb. “We weren’t ready to announce that, so there was this space in between it, so it did look like maybe we were going to go out. Then suddenly, we were arising again like the Phoenix.”
But the producer is quick to change the subject and talk about the future now, which includes a variety of projects on Hulu. And apparently, Disney+.
Disney+ is the upcoming streaming service that has already teamed up with Feige’s Marvel Studios to produce shows, which seemed to point to the fact that Marvel TV was shut out of any potential partnerships. Alas, that’s not the case, though don’t expect announcements anytime soon.
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“Well, first of all, I have to make something very clear, which is those are shows that are created and run and the responsibility of the motion picture studio,” he said. “Secondly, Marvel Television will be doing shows with Disney+, we just haven’t announced what we’re going to do there.”
What he can talk about is the upcoming launches of two new TV “groups,” a la “The Defenders.” The first is the already-announced “Offenders,” which includes a variety of Hulu animated projects such as “Howard the Duck.” The other, newer group is “Adventures of Fear,” which comprises the “terror” projects that Hulu is going to release. Don’t mistake “terror” for “horror,” however.
“No, it’s terror, because when you say horror, it means so many different things. There’s everything from ‘Saw,’ which is the last thing that we want to do, gore-fest kind of thing to there’s a monster running around,” he explained.
Instead, the new “Adventures of Fear” group will include the already-announced “Ghost Rider” and “Helstrom,” as well as some new projects that have yet to be revealed.
“What we love is the notion of how we can present a Marvel hero who was truly feared and truly believed that they were a monster, but that, as the stories go on, they realize, oh, I’m the hero of the story, I’m not the villain of the story,” Loeb said. “That’s not something we’ve ever done before. So we started with ‘Ghost Rider,’ we went out and managed to get Gabriel Luna to come back and reproduce the role he played on ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Then we’re going to do ‘Helstrom,’ and then there’s a couple more that we haven’t yet revealed to the world.”
So yeah, Netflix and Marvel TV are done. But Marvel TV lives on and will (hopefully) thrive on other platforms. Will this new small-screen era rival its big-screen brother? Only time will tell.