This fall Disney’s long awaited streaming service, Disney+, will finally launch. Disney+, which is being dubbed the “Netflix killer” by some, will launch with movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and National Geographic. It will also contain movies and series from Marvel, with MCU based series like Loki, Falcon & The Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Hawkeye already announced. Now it looks like Marvel Television will be getting in on the action as well.
During a recent Deadline interview with Jeph Loeb, Head of Television for Marvel Television, they asked the following question. “…under the same corporate umbrella, there’s going to be all these Disney+ shows… there’s a number of them, do you feel that there is a potential of too much Marvel?” This was his response:
“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. Secondly, Marvel Television will be doing shows with Disney+, we just haven’t announced what we’re going to do there.”
– Jeph Loeb, Deadline (2019)
More Marvel Television news…
Both FX’s Legion and ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are concluding their series this year. In addition, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Punisher, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were all canceled over at Netflix. Not to fret though, there is still Cloak & Dagger on Freeform and Runaways on Hulu if you need your Marvel TV fix. We also reported last week that ABC is currently developing a female-based superhero show with Marvel Television.
There are some shows currently in production that we have to look forward to as well. The live-action Ghost Rider, the animated Howard the Duck and adult-focused The Offenders are slated as future Hulu series. The real question for most fans is what other characters are being considered for Marvel Television. I think Jeph Loeb also gave us a hint in the same Deadline interview referenced above. When asked about “Marvel TV going forward” Loeb responded with the following:
“Then the next group is the Marvel Street-Level Heroes, or the Marvel Knights, as we sometimes call them here. So, if the Marvel heroes are here to save the universe, the Marvel Street-Level Heroes, the Marvel Knights, often they are just to save themselves, to save the neighborhood. Some of those appeared on Netflix, but there are others that live in that category, which are still to come.”
– Jeph Loeb, Deadline (2019)
What is Marvel Knights?
Marvel Knights was an imprint of Marvel Comics that contained standalone material taking place inside the Marvel Universe (Earth-616). They also contained more adult skewed story lines compared to the standard Marvel Comics. The imprint had 15 regular ongoing series, but many other titles crossed over getting limited series and/or one-shots. Among the ongoing series were Black Panther, Daredevil, The Punisher, Elektra, X-Statix and District X.
If Marvel Television is going to develop some of their Marvel Knights properties we already know that characters like The Punihser, Daredevil, and Luke Cage are off limits for the time being due to the Netflix fallout. The larger MCU properties or characters like Black Panther, the Avengers, and X-Men can be ruled out. My guess would be to look at the newly acquired mutant characters from X-Statix or District X. A deeper cut could even be a superhero like Sentry.
Hopefully we will learn more at the D23 Expo 2019 on August 23-25 in Anaheim. Stay tuned for more updates!
