The Mandalorian was just the beginning: On January 15, WandaVision brings the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Disney Plus for the first time, and ramps up from there throughout 2021. On March 19, the twist-off of Cap, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, weekly releases. , then Loki hits the small screen in May. Then, in the middle of the year, the Marvel animation What If? brings movie actors back to voice key characters in alternate universe settings. Finally, 2021 is expected to be filled with shows about Ms.Marvel and Hawkeye, both of which will introduce new heroes to the MCU. That's a lot of Marvel, and that's just the beginning. Many more shows would follow in the years that followed, but none of this is new if you're vaguely tuned into the events of this fictional universe. The strange thing is how much is in 2021, which is determined in part by Covid-related production delays, which pushed back some series from last year. If you thought the first 12 months of Disney Plus were a bit slow for the originals (and I did, though the Simpsons marathons kept me busy), this flurry of Marvel stuff is welcome. In 2021, Marvel will be at the center of the pop culture conversation, and it will never slow down. I expect this series of shows to have an incredible influence on the competition from Disney trying to make equally great series with big budgets and big stars. But is it a good thing? And do we really need these many Marvel shows?
The birth of a true television blockbuster
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(Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm) I've heard some people say that The Mandalorian Season 2 essentially replaced the highest-grossing movies in 2020, both on the scale of the series, which was indistinguishable from the movies in the way it was presented. elaborately, but also in the way we talk about it online. . I think it's right. For the last eight weeks of 2020, The Mandalorian was pop culture for a lot of people, and while the series wasn't hard to follow, there was a lot to dig into from a Star Wars story perspective. These Marvel shows could be just as important as The Mandalorian, inspiring a similar level of debate, memes, and explaining where certain elements in the comics came from. People are particularly thirsty for Marvel content right now, and what better distraction from a seemingly never-ending pandemic than your first visit to the MCU since summer 2019? Marvel is likely to be at the center of TV talk in 2021, just because of the commercial strength of the characters and the volume of the series. But I think it will lead to a bigger global TV shift in the future, where 'hit' TV shows will become more valuable to services than the kinds of high-profile dramas that have largely defined the era. streaming so far (House of Cards, Ozark and Orange is the new Black type series). There's definitely room for both - just watch The Queen's Gambit, watched by 62 million households on Netflix around the same time The Mandalorian has returned - but I think the next frontier of television in streaming is everyone looking for their own version of Command. That is, a series that will appeal to everyone, perhaps based on a family character or property, that will appeal to the greatest number.
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(Image credit: Marvel Studios / screenshot)
Are these types of programs new?
The Mandalorian is a weird TV show in that it breaks the rules of recent trends in TV drama. In fact, as has been pointed out several times, it feels more like a Xena-esque adventure-of-the-week type of series that was mostly popular in the '80s and '90s than in recent history. Of course, Mando is different from previous shows for several reasons: it costs a lot more to make and is set in the Star Wars universe, for example.
Borrowing from those influences, though, it's profoundly refreshing to watch compared to other modern TV shows, and it's impossible to imagine it better swapping its Adventure of the Week format for a more dramatic approach. talkative and serialized. Unlike many of the high-profile style shows seen on Netflix and HBO, The Mandalorian is designed to be watched by kids and adults alike.
Not that The Mandalorian is without precedent. Frustratingly inconsistent Star Trek: Discovery builds on the existing popular property and is clearly a more contemporary and expensive show than the previous Trek series. But Discovery feels a lot more like trying to be an hour-long drama than Mando, trying to fit into a TV landscape that already exists.
On the horizon are other signs that people are trying to create their own versions of The Mandalorian or Disney Plus Marvel shows, namely taking existing pop culture properties and making it a reality. building a freakishly large television series around it. Just look at Amazon, which does a show based on the Fallout games, as well as a Lord of the Rings series and another fantasy series based on the Wheel of Time books. To a lesser extent, too, The Boys and upcoming comic book adaptations like the animated superhero series Invincible and Stranger Things-ish Paper Girls show how useful it is to have well-regarded source material.
Also on HBO Max in the US. In the US, there are many TV shows based on DC Comics characters in the works. This is nothing new: Warner Bros. he's been doing them since Smallville and the animated Batman series. The key new element, though, is that these shows will tie-in with theatrical movies, including an upcoming Gotham crime drama spanning The Batman in 2022 and a The Suicide Squad spin-off based on John Cena's Peacemaker character. Tying the two together is a deliberate part of the future strategy, as discussed in a New York Times interview with DC Films' Walter Hamada.
Again, this feels like an approach that takes a page out of Marvel's playbook, to make sure you have to watch the TV shows to keep up with the history of the movies. But it also shows how blockbuster movies are playing on our television screens in a different way than they used to: it's a big shift from the Church and State approach. adopted in the past, and illustrates how important television subscription fees are. to those old entertainment companies.
But will that be equal to a great television?
The Mandalorian offers hope that this new breed of hit television can be incredibly exciting and capture the thrill of watching a movie on the big screen. Marvel's efforts, however, remain a bit of a mystery at this point, and these shows releasing this year sound drastically different from each other, which means we may see some resonate more than others. We'll soon see how much they connect with people and how the TV side of it is like all 23 movies in the MCU. It's hard not to be optimistic about seeing some of these characters again, and while six shows might seem like a lot for 2021, it'll certainly give us something to talk about in a year where blockbuster movies still seem uncertain about their future. future. together. parts of the world. This is a new phase in the streaming television arms race. The TV shows you like probably won't be changing anytime soon. But the shows that people talk about all the time could be very different a year from now.