Marvel Studios Executive Addresses MCU Strategy Pivot

The streamer wars really didn’t kick off until Disney announced its own service to rival Netflix. Upon the announcement, most Hollywood studios decided they too wanted their own service, and the battle for licensing and content creation began. While Disney+ was still in its infancy, there was a mandate given to Disney-owned studios to produce and release as many films and shows possible so the new platform would have all-new, exclusive content.

“I mean, frankly, in all honesty, there was a mandate to kind of create as much as we could for Disney+ as quickly as we could,” Marvel Studios boss Brad Winderbaum said in an interview our Phase Zero podcast. “And then there was a shift. And all of a sudden, we have to start spreading our release dates out. So, that really accounts for a lot of the delays. Now, we’re using that time. We’re not sitting idle. So, it’s like it stays in the oven. You can bake certain things a little more. It’s actually, I think, ultimately, it’s only going to make things better. But, most of it is just frankly shrapnel from the business.” 

Winderbaum went on to the shift in strategy also means many new projects are in various stages of development at Marvel Studios, meaning it’s increasingly likely some things in development never end up seeing the light of day.

“We have a new system behind-the-scenes at Marvel Studios,” Winderbaum added. “We’re more like a traditional studio now. We’re developing more than we actually will produce. There are plans to develop Nova. I love Nova, too. I love Rich Rider, too. I hope it gets to the screen. The world is always chaos. There’s always things. You gotta conjure these things to make them happen but I would love to see a Nova show, one day.”

You can read Marvel Studios’s official synopsis for the animated series here: “X-Men ’97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future. The voice cast includes Ray Chase as Cyclops, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, JP Karliak as Morph, Lenore Zann as Rogue, George Buza as Beast, AJ LoCascio as Gambit, Holly Chou as Jubilee, Isaac Robinson-Smith as Bishop, Matthew Waterson as Magneto and Adrian Hough as Nightcrawler.”

X-Men ’97 debuts on March 20th. You can watch Phase Zero’s full interview with Marvel Animation boss Brad Winderbaum here.