Marvel’s Tom Hiddleston Shares First Look At Loki TV Series Prep

Longtime Marvel star Tom Hiddleston has shared a behind-the-scenes look at prep work on Loki, Marvel Studios’ upcoming Disney+ series centered on the misadventures of Hiddleston’s titular demigod of mischief. The first look video, published by Hiddleston to Instagram on Monday, shows the actor wearing a harness that launches him into the air before ungracefully landing on a mat. Insider Charles Murphy recently reported Loki was one week into filming on the series expected to debut on the streaming service in spring 2021.

Story details remain under wraps, but an early report from THR said the spinoff series will follow the mischievous adopted brother of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as he pops up “throughout human history as an unlikely influencer on historical events.” Loki was last seen using the stolen Tesseract to teleport away in Avengers: Endgame during a 2012-set sequence taking place during the events of The Avengers.

Hiddleston learned of the series nearly two months before the global release of Avengers: Infinity War — where Loki is strangled to death by Thanos (Josh Brolin) in the opening minutes of the movie — forcing the actor to lie about his ongoing involvement with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Having played the character first in 2011’s Thor, 2012’s The Avengers, 2013’s Thor: The Dark World, 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok and again most recently in Infinity War and Endgame, “I know this character now,” Hiddleston previously told MTV News.

“I feel that the audience knows him. And playing him — and playing him truthfully, but presenting him with new challenges, which then I’d have to change him in different ways, is the most exciting aspect of it,” he said. “You’ve got his very specific gifts. His intelligence, treachery, his mischief, his magic, and then seeing him come up against more formidable opponents, the like of which he has never seen or known. I wish I could tell you what happens, but I can’t.”

Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige later revealed Loki will connect with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the big screen Doctor Strange sequel that also has major ties to upcoming Disney+ series WandaVision, centering on Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Loki is part of a larger and ambitious plan to weave the television side and the film side of the MCU in a way the studio has never done before.

“These episodes will intersect with the movies in a very big way. It’s a totally new form of storytelling that we get to play with and explore,” Feige previously told Variety. Bridging the films and the upcoming Disney+ shows, including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier starring Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, is “the first long-form narrative that Marvel Studios has done.”

“They’ll be six episodes, eight episodes, 10 episodes with the actors from the films playing their characters,” he said. “They’ll be changing, evolving, growing in those event series and then those changes will be reflected in their next film appearances.”

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, Spider-Man 3 on July 16, 2021, What If…? in Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021 and Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022. Marvel Studios Disney+ series without release dates include Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight and She-Hulk.