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ABC Eyes Marvel Again To Develop Superhero Series For Broadcast Network


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ABC is starting to shop around for another superhero series after Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is set to finish after its upcoming seventh season and the broadcast network is in talks again with Marvel.

ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke told Deadline that she was looking forward to working with Marvel Studios President and Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige, but said that they had not discussed which particular characters would be suitable for a broadcast show.

“We love our partners at Marvel and we’re sad to see [Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D] go, it’s been a big part of our history. We’re looking forward to working with Kevin Feige and we’re at the very beginning of conversations with him now about what a Marvel and ABC show might look like. Right now, Marvel’s focus has been on Disney+, as it should be,” Burke told Deadline at the Winter TCA Press Tour.

ABC was developing a new series with a Marvel female superhero, but those plans stalled.  In 2018, ABC gave a production commitment to an untitled hourlong drama from Wonder Women writer Allan Heinberg, Marvel Television and ABC Studios. Written by Heinberg, it was about female characters with superpowers. But in classic Marvel tradition, few details were offered.

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I have my doubts this will go anywhere as Marvel is certainly saving most of their stuff for Disney plus.  

That said, feels like the superhero tv shows tend to work best with "skilled fighter" type characters, since they aren't as budget-busting as shows with a lot of super-powers that require special effects (which then are only used sparingly).  I'd suggest White Tiger, with former FBI agent Angela Del Toro  and emphasize the legacy aspect, having an older Hector Ayala around as her mentor (plus some FBI allies to help feed her intel), with a lot of flashbacks to Hector's time as White Tiger in the 70s.   Have Lady Bullseye be her arch-foe, preferably as part of some larger shadowy organization that the White Tigers have been battling for generations, and that has moles within the FBI and other govt organizations.   

I feel like the character's (relative) obscurity would work in her favor, there are a lot of types of stories they could do, and having the protagonists be puerto rican would give it a somewhat different flavor, especially since there really haven't been many hispanic/latina characters in the mcu.

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I think creating all new characters for this project would be the way to go. This would benefit Disney/Marvel in many different ways, two of which are immediately apparent. First, it would not put any limitation on the availability of any of the established and familiar characters to be used in the MCU. Secondly it could be a way for them to get to some of the social issues that Feige keeps talking about that are happening "soon". They could create some new characters of color and ethnicities and even characters to represent the LGBT groups like they've been talking about recently. Just do it well and fair and make sure the story is good and let the ratings decide. Honestly, I couldn't care less about that kind of stuff as long as they make a good show and don't push any particular agenda. Just don't retcon the history of any characters we already know to check a box. Long story short, leave your biases on the cutting room floor and just make a damn good show, and people will watch.

Then if it does well they can make a comic based on it to make it part of the general Marvel Comics universe.

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5 minutes ago, monron999 said:

I think creating all new characters for this project would be the way to go. This would benefit Disney/Marvel in many different ways, two of which are immediately apparent. First, it would not put any limitation on the availability of any of the established and familiar characters to be used in the MCU. Secondly it could be a way for them to get to some of the social issues that Feige keeps talking about that are happening "soon". They could create some new characters of color and ethnicities and even characters to represent the LGBT groups like they've been talking about recently. Just do it well and fair and make sure the story is good and let the ratings decide. Honestly, I couldn't care less about that kind of stuff as long as they make a good show and don't push any particular agenda. Just don't retcon the history of any characters we already know to check a box. Long story short, leave your biases on the cutting room floor and just make a damn good show, and people will watch.

Then if it does well they can make a comic based on it to make it part of the general Marvel Comics universe.

There's definitely some merit to this idea, but i feel like if they are going to go with all-new characters then why do they need the marvel label at all, just do a superhero show set in its own universe.  I suppose the marvel brand will bring in new viewers initially but then there all these questions about why aren't the avengers showing up and why hasn't the show acknowledged events x,y, and z that took place in the movies.  I suppose its a double-edged sword. 

the TV series will almost surely be more "progressive" in its representation and tackling of social issues, but then that's been true of almost all the marvel tv series in comparison to (most of) the marvel movies.  they're not worried about chinese censors and the like and even domestically, they don't need as many viewers so they can more easily write off people who are offended by gay characters, etc.... imo of course.

Have their been any successful comics that spun out of the mcu (either movies or tv series)?  I know they brought in Nick Fury Jr and Coulson, and also changed Star-lord to be more like his cinematic counterpart, but i'm not sure if that really boosted any comic sales or not.

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16 hours ago, ADour said:

ABC is also Disney so it's more of a "you can/can't play with your brother, ABC."

Yeah, but... isn't it more expensive to make stuff for tv over streaming? If I were Disney, I'd just focus on Disney+... but that's 'cause I don't watch regular cable or TV anyway.

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2 hours ago, memocromatico said:

Yeah, but... isn't it more expensive to make stuff for tv over streaming? If I were Disney, I'd just focus on Disney+... but that's 'cause I don't watch regular cable or TV anyway.

According to this article, the disney plus marvel series are around 25 million per episode (for a 6-8 episode "season").  I don't think any of the previous tv series or netflix series were working with that kind of budget, Agents of SHIELD in particular really seemed to a very low budget production... and lets not even talk about how cheap Inhumans looked.  (for comparison purposes,  Mandalorian was purportedly 15 million per episode although the article says 12.5). That's why i think a street level character would probably be best,  i think ABC will cheap out on any show involving a lot of special effects.

But i agree with your overall point, i'm not sure it benefits DIsney to make a show for ABC.  Probably better to just wait  til the end of 2021 and let ABC air the 1st season of WandaVision or Falcon & Winter Soldier, for those who never signed up for the streaming service.

https://www.businessinsider.com/budget-of-disney-plus-star-wars-series-the-mandalorian-2019-10

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Frankly I'm surprised they left SHIELD on that long. Ive said it before in this forum, it was poorly executed for most of its run and survived as Shield In Name Only.  It was slated to be killed after the 4th season but even though it was a ratings dud, they liked the idea of having a "Marvel" property under their belt, so they kept going. They could really have done a lot with this series, and they just blew a lot of potential. 

If they go ahead with a new project, I would imagine theyre looking for something that uses the least extensive special effects as possible ( your non/ minimally powered types such as Paladin, White Tiger, and the like). ABC is just not prepared to spend the necessary funds on this kind of thing the way Disney would. And that's ok, because if the writers, direction and acting are good enough they wont need to have mind-blowing special effects every episode.

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11 hours ago, Atlantis said:

Frankly I'm surprised they left SHIELD on that long. Ive said it before in this forum, it was poorly executed for most of its run and survived as Shield In Name Only.  It was slated to be killed after the 4th season but even though it was a ratings dud, they liked the idea of having a "Marvel" property under their belt, so they kept going. They could really have done a lot with this series, and they just blew a lot of potential. 

If they go ahead with a new project, I would imagine theyre looking for something that uses the least extensive special effects as possible ( your non/ minimally powered types such as Paladin, White Tiger, and the like). ABC is just not prepared to spend the necessary funds on this kind of thing the way Disney would. And that's ok, because if the writers, direction and acting are good enough they wont need to have mind-blowing special effects every episode.

If I remember correctly ABC wanted to cancel it but Disney wouldn't let them. If they are going to doing something on the cheap, maybe they will just do another Mutant X

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