Marvel Studios isn’t blind to the fact that TV viewers don’t want “homework.” As of May’s Thunderbolts*, the Marvel Cinematic Universe encompasses 36 movies, nearly two dozen television series, and eight short films, most of which are canon. With the Kevin Feige-led Marvel Studios absorbing the shuttered Marvel Television division in 2019 and relaunching it as the brand for such series as Agatha All Along, Daredevil: Born Again, and Ironheart, it was, essentially, Marvel’s way of communicating: It’s all connected, but you don’t have to watch it all.
Whereas limited series like 2021’s WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier fed into the feature film side of the MCU with headliners like Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany’s Vision, Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, the approach Marvel is taking to TV now is more traditional. That means annual seasons of shows featuring characters earmarked for the TV corner of the universe, with one or two live-action shows a year and two animated shows a year.
“Producing shows with marquee names, it made it really challenging to produce second seasons; the margins on TV are smaller,” Brad Winderbaum, Head of Streaming, Television and Animation at Marvel Studios, told The Hollywood Reporter during Disney’s upfronts presentation. “Looking to the future, does it mean that we won’t have big Avengers names? No. They may not be the titular character of the show, but they can still make appearances.”
While series like Loki and Hawkeye were more rooted in the MCU with marquee characters like Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton, Marvel rolled out the Marvel Spotlight banner with Echo to spotlight more standalone and “grounded, character-driven stories” and the Special Presentation for one-offs like Werewolf by Night or the upcoming Daredevil spinoff featuring Jon Bernthal’s Punisher.
Ironheart (June 24) and Wonder Man (December 2025) were made before the pivot and will be the last of the old model, with Marvel moving toward a season-per-year approach as of Daredevil: Born Again. The currently-shooting second season has been set to premiere in March 2026, one year after the first season of Marvel Studios’ Daredevil revival debuted on Disney+.
“You should be able to watch these shows on their own, without knowing the overall MCU story,” Winderbaum said. “But if it’s not connected, it’s severing what makes the MCU the MCU.”
Explaining the Marvel Television and Marvel Animation branding being used to differentiate from Marvel Studios’ films, Winderbaum said last year, “There was a lot of pressure post-Avengers: Endgame on the public to feel obligated to watch absolutely everything in order to watch anything. Part of the rebranding was a signal to the general audience that we’re creating a lot of options, and you can follow your tastes within this brand.”
“Some will be more comedic, some will be more dramatic, some will be animated, some will be live-action,” he said at the time. “Marvel is more than just one thing — it is actually many different genres that just happened to coexist in a single narrative.”
Winderbaum continued, “The characters still live and breathe in the same universe, but the interconnectivity is not so rigid that you need to watch Project A to understand Project B. The hope is that, like the comics, you can just pop in anywhere and have a satisfying experience. We’re trying to dispel the idea that you need to do any kind of setup work to watch anything else.”
Marvel Studios isn’t blind to the fact that TV viewers don’t want “homework.” As of May’s Thunderbolts*, the Marvel Cinematic Universe encompasses 36 movies, nearly two dozen television series, and eight short films, most of which are canon. With the Kevin Feige-led Marvel Studios absorbing the shuttered Marvel Television division in 2019 and relaunching it Read More