Marvel Studios is set to overhaul the way it produces television following a number of creative misfires and criticism of its shows according to THR.
Along with breaking the news about the full reset of their “Daredevil: Born Again” series this morning, the trade reports that the company is now moving to make TV shows in a more traditional way.
Until now the studio has adopted the same approach it had to films – namely heavily relying on post-production and reshoots to fix what it perceives as not working.
In addition, their TV series didn’t hire show-runners. Rather film executives ran the series, and reportedly blocked writers from creative oversight during post-production.
The shows also eschewed the traditional TV-making model – no pilots, rather series with $150 million+ budgets shot on the fly and often lacking a core vision which has led to creative differences and tension on set.
Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation, says things are going to change:
“We’re trying to marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture. It comes down to, ‘How can we tell stories in television that honor what’s so great about the source material?’”
The outlet indicates part of the problem is Marvel bringing in outside executives on their staff in recent years after previously internally promoting creatives that had been “trained in the Marvel method”.
The change was said to be most severely felt on “Secret Invasion” which saw its head writer Kyle Bradstreet (“Mr. Robot”) fired after a year’s work on the scripts. “Broken City” writer Brian Tucker, and directors Thomas Bezucha and Ali Selim were then brought in.
Their sources indicate production was debilitated by factions creatively fighting during the show’s pre-production phase in London in Summer 2022, saying it included “weeks of people not getting along”.
Both “Moon Knight” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” saw their creators quit and be sidelined respectively, though on the latter head writer Jessica Gao returned to oversee post-production.
Plans going forward now are for shows to have proper show-runners who will write pilots & show bibles. They also plan to bring full-time TV executives on board as opposed to bringing in people from their film executive ranks.
One thing we can expect is reportedly a shift away from the limited series-only formula and an increase in multi-season serialized TV – meaning “Loki” won’t be the only multi-season Marvel series.
The shows will also reportedly put more focus on character work and relationships rather than feeling like part of a larger puzzle that sets up the next film or crossover TV event.
Article originated in: THR
