Marvel Studios Is Now Overhauling TV Production To Be Creator-Friendly

The studio is finally realizing why certain steps are taken in making successful TV

When Marvel Studios began producing its television series, it didn’t commission pilots. Instead, its nine $150 million-plus seasons of more than 50 hours of live-action TV were shot by the seat of their pants. It didn’t hire showrunners, but instead put that duty on film executives. And as Marvel does for its movies, it relied on postproduction and reshoots to fix what wasn’t working. It became clear to executives Daredevil: Born Again was not compatible with this system.

When production paused in June in the midst of the writers’ strike, fewer than half of the series’ 18 episodes had been shot, but it was enough for Marvel executives, Kevin Feige included, to take a look. It was clearly to not great results. Head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman were quietly moved to executive producer roles, while the directors of the rest of the season were let go. The search for new writers and directors is already on. These setbacks explain why the delay of the series went all the way to January 2025.

“We’re trying to marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture,” says Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation. “It comes down to, ‘How can we tell stories in television that honor what’s so great about the source material?’” He says of moving to hire showrunners, “It’s a term we’ve not only grown comfortable with but also learned to embrace.” Marvel hopes to correct the course with this new creative direction as the series has been strapped with sky-high expectations. Daredevil: Born Again is the first series to focus on the characters that had Netflix series in earlier MCU phases, in this case Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock aka Daredevil. Corman and Ord reportedly crafted a legal procedural that was nothing like the violent action series it’s continuing. Cox didn’t even show up in costume until the fourth episode. Marvel, after greenlighting the concept, found itself having to reconsider what the show is trying to accomplish. Some scenes and episodes will be kept, incorporating other serialized elements.

Reportedly, those working with Marvel’s TV side have found a lack of central vision that has, according to sources, begun to create creative differences and tension. “TV is a writer-driven medium,” says one insider familiar with the process. “Marvel is a Marvel-driven medium.” Troubles were seen when Moon Knight show creator and writer Jeremy Slater quit, and director Mohamed Diab had to step in. Jessica Gao developed and wrote She-Hulk: Attorney at Law but was pushed aside upon the arrival of director Kat Coiro. With a COVID wave, Gao was brought back and handed the typical showrunner duty of postproduction, but it’s unusual for a Marvel head writer to have such oversight. However it was this work that woke executives up to how helpful it is for its shows to have a creative throughline from start to finish. “The whole ‘fix it in post’ attitude makes it feel like a director doesn’t matter sometimes,” says another.“

Then there’s Secret Invasion, the Samuel L. Jackson-led thriller which had the worst of it and would become Marvel’s worst-reviewed series. Kyle Bradstreet was a writer and executive producer coming from Mr. Robot, and he had been writing Secret Invasion for about a year when after Marvel went in a different direction and replaced him. Brian Tucker came in to write while Thomas Bezucha and Ali Selim came on board as directors and to help get the story right, allegedly. While that was normal by their standards, summer of 2022 saw power struggles during the show’s preproduction in London. “It was weeks of people not getting along, and it erupted,” says an insider.

The company deployed Jonathan Schwartz, a senior executive and member of Marvel’s creative steering committee known as The Parliament, to get the show, falling behind schedule and on the verge of losing some actors due to other commitments, back on track. By early September, a significant number of the Invasion team had been replaced. There were new line producers, unit production managers and assistant directors. Bezucha, intended direct three episodes, left the show because of his own scheduling conflicts. The Marvel executive in charge of the show, Chris Gary, was reassigned. He is expected to depart the company when his contract expires at the end of 2023.

The days of Marvel shooting an entire series and then looking at what is working and what isn’t, are over. Now they’re realizing they want their shows to last over multiple seasons. Where Loki isn’t an outlier but the norm, with fuller character relationships than being solely film stopgaps. Echo and Wonder-Man are promised examples of such.

Credit: Marvel Studios

Back about Born Again, soon after this news broke, a Twitter user mentioned to actor Vincent D’Onofrio, who is returning to his role as Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, in this series, how his gushing about scenes he had filmed in April, specifically saying he had “just finished a big scene yesterday… so intense and wonderful working with two of the other cast members” hadn’t “aged well”. As if it couldn’t have still been a fun scene even if it doesn’t make it to the new version of the series. He responded “Unless you really know what’s going there’s a chance you could be wrong about this statement. We are going to bring forward the best series we can. One we can be proud of. Have some trust my freind [sic], trust.”

While the fan would fess up they acted out of emotion, D’Onofrio gave them an explanation as to how he’s experienced these things before. “Every cool project I’ve been involved with has evolved constantly during pre-production, production and post. It’s just reported on these days as if it’s big news. It’s not. It’s simple a bunch of creatives doing their best to get it right. It’s a constant in this business. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Frankly, I’d be worried if we were settling for less.”

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline