Disney Looks Set to Bring Marvel's Big-Screen Heroes to Its New Streaming Service
And Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch have been named as the likely first candidates.
Streaming platforms and superheroes are modern life's new certainties, with instances of both continuing to pop up all over the place. When Disney launches its own next big venture, the two will combine, giving a number of Marvel's big-screen characters their own small-screen series.
As reported by Variety, Marvel is apparently planning a number of limited-run shows based on its popular Marvel Cinematic Universe figures, with Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch named as the likely first candidates. Each series is expected to run for six to eight episodes, and the strategy will focus on characters that haven't yet received their own standalone movies — and don't have any in the works.
That means that we won't be seeing any dedicated shows about Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Captain Marvel or Black Widow; however there are plenty of others that fit the bill. While no other names have been floated, War Machine, Hawkeye, Falcon, Quicksilver, Bucky Barnes, Valkyrie and Killmonger all meet the criteria, for starters — and, if you forget about the Edward Norton-starring The Incredible Hulk (which is easily done) before Mark Ruffalo took over the part, then the Hulk could also fit at a stretch.
Taking a figure from one of its films and spinning a series around them is an approach that Marvel took with Agent Carter, based on Hayley Atwell's character from Captain America: The First Avenger, so it's hardly new or surprising. Like that two-series program, the plan seems to be for actors from Marvel's movies to reprise their roles for the streaming service.
Disney hasn't even announced a specific launch date for its streaming platform — although it's expected to become available late next year — so this really is a watch-this-space kind of situation. Still, between the long-running Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the company's six different Netflix series and a few other TV titles, the company has shown that it likes putting the MCU on the small screen as much as the big.
Disney's streaming platform will also boast a $100 million Star Wars series from The Jungle Book, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau, a High School Musical TV series, another show based on Monsters, Inc. and a live-action Lady and the Tramp movie.
Via Variety. Image: Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War. Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Photo: Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2018.
