Echo Willl Be Marvel’s First TV-MA Rated Series on Disney+

The first trailer for Echo was released today, and the series follows Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) as she “struggles to reconnect with her Native American roots while balancing aspirations tied to a life of crime as successor to the brutal legacy of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) AKA Kingpin.” Of course, D’Onofrio’s Kingpin was first introduced in Daredevil on Netflix, and it sounds like Echo will have more in common with the Defenderverse than Marvel’s Disney+ shows. Not only is Echo going to be released all at once, but it will be Marvel’s first Disney+ series that will be released simultaneously on Hulu. Echo will also be Marvel’s first Disney+ series to be rated TV-MA.

 “It’s our first TV-MA show, so it’s a little on the grittier side for Marvel,” executive producer Brad Winderbaum recently told members of the press at a trailer event for Echo. “And I think again, shows kind of the breadth of what Marvel’s capable of. And certainly something, again, if you know the comics and know the history, it feels very in line, but is kind of a new direction for the brand, especially on Disney+. And to that end, it’s going to be, for many reasons, going to be simultaneously released on Disney+ and Hulu.”  

“We wanted very adamantly to show that these are people in our show,” Echo director and executive producer Sydney Freeland explained at the trailer event attended by ComicBook.com. “They bleed, they die, they get killed, and there are real-world consequences. And again, talking, it’s not the fate of the universe at stake because I think once you go that broad, you can sort of lose sight a little bit. And so that kind of dictated the tone a little bit.”

“It’s very different,” producer Stephen Broussard previously told Collider. “Like, talking about Werewolf by Night to this. It’s a very different tonal sort of thing. I don’t want to say too much because there’s not a whole lot out there in the world, but it feels very grounded, it feels very spiritual in ways that feel fresh for us,” he explained. “Alaqua as the lead is incredibly compelling. I’m sort of hard-pressed to think of something that it feels like outside in the broader realm of the MCU, let alone within what we’ve done here. So stay tuned on that really cool stuff.”

Are you surprised Echo is going to be rated TV-MA? Tell us in the comments! 

Echo is now set to hit Disney+ and Hulu on January 10.