Marvel Studios Reportedly Moving Away From Live-Action Disney+ Shows Toward Animation

Marvel Studios may be moving away from live-action television on Disney Plus altogether and shifting Marvel Television toward animation, according to a new report. If true, this would mean the recent cancellation of Wonder Man season 2 was not an isolated decision but a symptom of a much bigger change happening behind the scenes.

This past weekend brought news that Wonder Man had been canceled at Marvel Studios for season 2, just months after the show was greenlit for a second run, and right as season 1 was closing out to what looked like strong critic and fan acclaim. I put Wonder Man up there personally right alongside Loki and Werewolf by Night as some of the best live-action work done for Disney Plus.

Wonder Man's Season 2 Cancellation Left Questions Unanswered

In the wake of that cancellation, one of the producers on the show took to social media to address it directly. The producer said, "Look, schedules were clear, calendars were clear, handshakes were made, contracts were signed, everybody was ready to do season 2." The point being made was that it had nothing to do with the creatives involved.

Instead, the producer described it as some internal decision at Disney and Marvel Studios not to move forward with a second season. That explanation didn't really answer any of the questions swirling around the cancellation. If anything, it raised new ones about why they would walk away from a second season of a show that seemed to be succeeding by every metric for live-action Marvel on Disney Plus.

A New Scoop Points to Animation Taking Over Marvel Television

The latest update comes from industry insider and Twitter scoopster The Beyond Reporter, and I want to stress up front that no scooper gets everything right, so this should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, The Beyond Reporter was the only source in the last couple of weeks who correctly had the Avengers: Doomsday trailer arriving on Monday with tickets, while every other bigger trailer scooper had it pegged for Saturday night right after San Diego Comic-Con. Credit where credit's due there.

That track record is why I give a little more weight to scoopers like this, especially ones willing to attach their name and build a running record that can actually be checked over time. According to this latest update, Marvel Studios is altogether moving away from live-action on Disney Plus and toward animation. I could easily picture a future where Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and X-Men '97 style animated projects are essentially the whole Disney Plus lineup, with no live-action television shows at all.

Marvel's Own Slate Already Seems to Confirm It

What makes this scoop feel more credible is that Marvel Studios appears to have already confirmed it by reverse, meaning by what simply isn't happening. Right now Marvel Studios has zero confirmed live-action shows in pre-production of any kind except for Daredevil season 3, which has already shot the majority of its principal photography.

Any of the leftover planned shows from the early Multiverse Saga days, like Armor Wars, have been scrapped. Any live-action shows that were confirmed by the trades or even discussed by Marvel's own top brass as a possibility, like Nova, have been scrapped as well. And now a show that was already greenlit for a confirmed second season, one that was genuinely a hit, has been scrapped too. After Vision Quest arrives in a couple of months and Daredevil season 3 follows next summer, there is currently nothing else live-action announced from Marvel Studios for Disney Plus.

Why I Think the Real Reason Is Simple: These Shows Don't Make Money

Looking at the tea leaves from the last three or four years, I think the answer to why is actually pretty easy, and I'm honestly not sure why it was so confusing even for the producer on Wonder Man to figure out what that closed-door decision was. The Disney Plus live-action shows make zero money and thus zero cents from a business standpoint for Marvel Studios. They can no longer argue the shows contribute to box office success, since the characters have mostly stayed isolated from the films.

Loki crossing into the multiverse saga is an anomaly, a one-off, and WandaVision turned into its own trilogy, but for most of these shows the characters have only shown up once, like She-Hulk, and may never be seen again. Ms. Marvel appeared in a film, but Marvel then decreed that they didn't want fans to feel like they had to do homework, wanting a clear divide between the television shows and the movies. What that was subtly saying is they can't justify spending money on something like a Nova show, because even additional global syndication off Disney Plus doesn't make up the gap in lost revenue against what it costs to produce.

These shows also don't translate into new subscriptions for Disney Plus. Disney wanted to compete head to head in the streaming game and thought putting out shows for Star Wars and Marvel would keep driving subscriptions, but that growth has all but tapered out now. And if they also want a clear divide between the TV shows and the movies anyway, since the shows aren't contributing to the films, then there's no real point making them at all, which was actually the original complaint from fans back when these characters were isolated on Netflix without the rights to crossover.

A Similar Streaming Pattern and Wonder Man's Ratings Drop

This isn't the first time we've seen something like this play out. It happened with another animated show that became one of the biggest in the world after its first couple of seasons, only for there to be a long lull before more got made, because the money was clearly there but the proper system to capture it wasn't in place yet.

With Disney, they can syndicate a show to other networks around the globe after it premieres on Disney Plus, but the splash it makes in the moment doesn't justify the cost. Wonder Man, despite being well received by fans and critics, only popped into the top 10 on the ratings charts for its first episode before immediately falling out. As I put it, "there was no demand for that television show." As good as it was, it just doesn't turn into money for Disney Plus.

Layoffs Across Disney Point to a Company-Wide Slimming Down

We've also seen layoffs across almost every department at Disney, and the company is clearly slimming down. Earlier this year they let go of the entire visual development department, some of whom had been with Marvel since day one, helping develop costumes, backgrounds, sets and action sequences. In this broader slimming down, if the TV shows don't make financial sense, they're simply not going to keep making them.

Is This a Good or Bad Thing for the MCU?

I think whether this is good or bad genuinely depends on where you stand and how you view these shows. I've always felt differently about what I'd consider the bottom half of the MCU compared to lesser superhero cinema like the Sony spinoffs, Morbius and Madame Web. In a world where not everything can be great, I didn't have a problem with a bad Madame Web spinoff, because it messes up the movie, the script, the IP, but it doesn't mess up what the MCU itself is doing.

Television is different, because these characters are part of the MCU and often borrowed from the cinematic side. That creates a disjointed MCU where there is a She-Hulk, but we may never see her again, or worse, something like Secret Invasion comes along and, in my view, makes a mockery of a fan-favorite title, abusing characters in a way where the acting doesn't matter if the budget and script don't match the ambition.

My Case for Doing Fewer, Better Live-Action Shows

Were they able to pull off good live-action television? Absolutely, Daredevil season 1 and season 2 prove they can. But I think maybe less is more, and maybe by not overdoing it, by only doing one show at a time or being selective about when they do it, say taking a year or two off after Daredevil season 3 before doing another live-action show, it would actually work out for the best.

That approach would let any future show build real demand after an absence and let Marvel put a proper budget behind it, making it something worthy of being folded into the greater MCU. There are plenty of characters and storylines adjacent to the X-Men that could work this way, shows for characters who might not show up in the films but would still have a place on Disney Plus. It still comes down to the same questions though: can they make money with it, is it worth their time, will it bring subscriptions. Right now, the answer is no, and that's why they're not making them.

There is a chance Disney announces a brand new live-action show at the D23 event, but I don't think it's likely. Had you already noticed that Marvel currently has no brand new live-action shows announced at all?