Disney is making sure Marvel fans sign up for its upcoming streaming service by connecting the shows directly with the super popular movies.
For the past few years, Marvel’s television output has been, well, weird. There’s a lot of it, first of all, from Agents of SHIELD and Inhumans on ABC, to all the Defenders shows on Netflix, even stretching to Legion on FX, Runaways on Hulu, and more.
Some of those have just existed on their own, mostly or totally ignorant of the films that largely inspired them. Others have tried to tie into the movies, either by drawing major story connections or with some vague mentions here and there.
Eventually though, simply because the shows are not being produced by the same people making the movies—Marvel Television vs. Marvel Studios—most of those connections have largely been given up on. For example, us trying to figure out when Thanos’ snap would happen on Agents of SHIELD only for it to…not. At least, not yet.
All that said, in a new interview, the president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, made it very clear that upcoming Disney+ shows, such as the Loki show that was officially announced, and the Vision/Scarlet Witch and Falcon/Winter Soldier shows that yet to be, will all be part of the connected Marvel Cinematic Universe that has been running since 2008.
“These will be Marvel Studios productions,” Feige told ComicBook.com. “They will be entirely interwoven with both the current MCU, the past MCU, and the future of the MCU.”
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2018/04/how-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-left-its-tv-side-behind/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/jlauvahudwqxbozrqorj.png” title=”How The Marvel Cinematic Universe Left Its TV Side Behind ” excerpt=”Next month, the Marvel Cinematic Universe celebrates a grand achievement – just a week after the release of Avengers: Infinity War, it will have been 10 years since Iron Man hit theatres on 2 May 2008. Five years after Marvel effectively created its Cinematic Universe, the company’s TV division launched an equally bold venture: A plan to bring the movie’s universe to the small screen.”]
Now, for many of us, this seems fairly obvious. Of course shows starring the stars of the MCU will tie into the MCU. It would be pretty weird of Tom Hiddleston to do a Loki show that didn’t acknowledge that he played Loki in five previous blockbuster movies. On the other hand, Clark Gregg straddles that line on Agents of SHIELD, a show that still dabbles in MCU connections but is not the 100 per cent integrated side story it felt destined to be. But yes, even though these Disney+ projects will be TV shows, they’re being handled by Marvel Studios.
The other interesting thing about this quote is how Feige doesn’t commit to the shows being in the current MCU timeline. He specifically mentions the past, present, and future, making it seem that prequels, as have been rumoured in some cases, are possible.
No official timeline has been set for any of the upcoming shows, but Disney+ is likely to debut this fall—and more information on it, and its shows, is coming in April.