Brad Winderbaum Teases What’s Ahead For Marvel Television, Including The End Of 'What If…?'
The Official Marvel Podcast is becoming a great source for news about what’s to come.
So, confession/acknowledgment time: That premiere episode of The Official Marvel Podcast with Kevin Feige? That was released last week. Meant to get around to it sooner but ah well. The urgency kicked in because the podcast’s second episode released Wednesday, and it didn’t feel right to share what that episode’s guest, Head of Streaming, Television and Animation Brad Winderbaum revealed before covering Feige. Rather do things in the proper order. Winderbaum didn’t touch on every show that’s either active or announced, but it was a large majority, plus Wonder-Man has already been acknowledged.
About Daredevil: Born Again, which premieres in the spring, he said “Daredevil is incredible. It’s similar in some ways to X-Men ’97, because it’s reviving something that the fans love, but it is taking it in a new direction. These characters have matured. The universe is different than it was. Things have changed. Society’s changed.” The series had a new logo revealed back at Upfronts, at a point where filming on season 1 had recently wrapped. There, stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio shared that the characters had returned to their original characterizations after the overhaul but with the growth that the passing years allow as things and society change. “And potentially much improved.” D’Onofrio added, “It’s hard to comment because I want to say so much about both the [Netflix] show and this show, and the change that happened, but in the end, the last few months of work we did was… written beautifully and directed beautifully…. Personally, I think it’s as intense as we’ve ever been.” Cox then gushed about the “pretty emotional” reunion with Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson, who weren’t part of the series originally “They are such a heartbeat of the show, and always have been.” D’Onofrio then praised the “extremely talented” Ayelet Zurer, who’s returning as Kingpin’s wife Vanessa Fisk. Winderbaum’s words on the podcast echoed this, saying “Matt and Wilson have changed, and their characters are gonna collide in ways we’ve never seen before. It’s no longer enough to try and murder each other. There’s a whole game of politics at play.”
The latest-announced animated series, Eyes of Wakanda, was also discussed. “This is a story about Wakandan history. It’s produced by Ryan Coogler, directed by Todd Harris, who is one of our longtime storyboard artists…. It’s an awesome show, the action’s insane, the storytelling is fantastic. It’s both about the history of Wakanda, but it also expands into the greater MCU at different time periods. So if you’re a fan of the movies, I think this show’s gonna be a real treat.”
The WandaVision spinoff Agatha All Along is the only one with a date, premiering on Disney+ September 18 and running until November 6, and was recently hyped up by creator and head writer Jac Schaeffer, but more certainly wouldn’t hurt, and Winderbaum provided, describing just the tone the show is going for. “Agatha is…really fun, but it’s really scary and it gets quite dramatic,” he said. “She’s an amazing anti-hero and that show…lures you in with the fun of Halloween, and before you know it, you’re crying. It’s a Marvel brand of scary. It’s a Halloween show. There are deadly stakes in this series. It’s a fun ride, but it’s a dangerous one.”
For a while now, despite the infinite possibility of multiversal storytelling, Winderbaum had been hinting that What If…?’s third season would be its last. Unfortunately, it seems he’s doubling down, saying “It feels like the completion of a trilogy. It takes us to places that you’d never expect. It goes beyond the first two seasons in its exploration of the multiverse. It pulls in characters that are very unexpected, and has what I think is an extremely moving and very fulfilling culmination for Uatu the Watcher.” One source believes that the scale back on production left the series vulnerable due to how many stars from the films have taken part and are presumably quite costly.
Finally, there’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which brings webslinger-focused animation back to family viewing. “It has twists and turns that are amazing, but the real power is the ensemble, the neighborhood.” Some of the characters in the ensemble Winderbaum highlights that haven’t appeared in the sacred timeline include Nico Minoru, Lonnie Lincoln, and Harry Osborn. “(Showrunner) Jeff Trammel is amped up in such a major way, playing with characters.” Winderbaum says. Other newly introduced characters include Amadeus Cho and Harry Osborn for allies, and Unicorn, Chameleon, Scorpion, Speed Demon, Tarantula, Rhino, and Butane among the rogues. While no official premiere date has been announced yet, the United States Copyright Office filing has it for November 2.
Sources: Deadline, TVLine, What’s On Disney Plus