How Marvel Is Revamping Its TV Shows to Win Back Fatigued Viewers
Variety reports that Marvel is revamping its TV shows in the hopes of luring back wary audience members who have become fatigued with superhero epics.
With the premiere of Agatha All Along in September, Marvel will drop its trademark title card from all new television series. Nearly all of Marvel’s TV shows have carried the studio’s epic title card, but that was back when it was tying all of its movies inextricably to its series. After a wave of box office disappointments and mounting numbers of disinterested fans, Marvel has reversed course.
“There was a lot of pressure post-Avengers: Endgame on the public to feel obligated to watch absolutely everything in order to watch anything,” Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, television, and animation, told Variety. “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. Marvel is more than just one thing—it is actually many different genres that just happened to coexist in a single narrative.”
For a brief time, Marvel used its series to lead into its blockbuster theatrical releases. The end of WandaVision led directly into Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, while Loki’s first season and Ms. Marvel both contained plot turns that reverberated through last years’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, respectively.
But now, the studio is easing up on those crossovers because it seems to be turning off viewers new and old alike. “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,” Winderbaum explained of the new approach.
“The hope is that, like the comics, you can just pop in anywhere and have a satisfying experience," Winderbaum continued. "We’re trying to dispel the idea that you need to do any kind of setup work to watch anything else.”
Agatha All Along premieres September 18 on Disney+.