Marvel’s Joe Quesada Launching New Disney+ Series

Marvel Entertainment chief creative officer Joe Quesada will host Storyboards, an original Disney+ documentary series launching alongside the streaming service November 12.

“A comparison that everyone knows is Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” Quesada told Wired. “We go on locations, but instead of food or culture being the focus, the focus is a guest, the way they tell stories, and their story.”

The sophomore season of Storyboards will be comprised of roughly one dozen 10 to 15-minute episodes with a wide variety of guests, including former X-Men star Hugh Jackman in its premiere episode. Other guests include songwriter Robert Lopez (Book of Mormon, Disney’s Frozen), Teen Vogue executive editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir.

“It would have been easy just to go for 12 celebrity guests, but we have a wide variety of people,” Quesada said.

“The real thrill to me is to find out, ‘What’s your story?’ People tell their stories in all different ways. It’s not just writing, drawing, or filming. Athletes tell stories in how they perform. Dancers tell stories with their bodies.”

The series was pitched to Marvel parent company Disney when company veteran Quesada hosted a live, one-on-one interview with Daredevil leading man Charlie Cox at New York Comic Con 2017 and later an interview with Marvel editor in chief C.B. Cebulski, turning the taped interviews into a “pilot.”

“We pitched to Disney and next thing, here we are — we have a season,” Quesada explained.

“The show started when someone asked me, ‘What’s your hobby?’ and I realized that, much like Stan Lee, I’m doing my hobby for a living. That’s the reason Stan never retired — he was living that old adage, ‘When you do what you love, you never work a day again.’ And my absolute love is storytelling. So I started to formulate this.”

The story-focused series is a natural fit for the once editor in chief, who has had a hand in Marvel’s movies and television shows in his role as CCO.

“I have seen Joe Quesada spit out multi-million dollar ideas to writers and artists of multiple generations with a generosity of spirit that is staggering,” said former Ultimate Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis. “My favorite part of being on the Marvel Cinematic Universe creative committee all those years was seeing Joe’s laser-focused notes transform a Marvel film so much that his notes ended up in the trailer.”

Added Quesada, “I get the question a lot: ‘What the hell is a chief creative officer?’ But I think the show solidified it for me: I tell stories for a living. That’s what I do.”

Also available at launch will be Marvel’s Hero Project, which “reveals the positive change several young heroes are making in their own communities.” To be available in first year after launch are two other Marvel-inspired series, anthological docu-series Marvel’s 616, and Marvel Studios’ first ever animated series, Marvel’s What If…?

Disney+ launches November 12.