Marvel’s Echo Delayed, What If & Agatha Shows Get New Premiere Windows

The release schedule of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been shaken up once again. On Friday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that three of the franchise’s upcoming Disney+ series have received new dates — including a several-month delay for the upcoming Echo live-action series. According to their reporting, Echo‘s release date has been shifted from November 29th to some point in January 2024. As Marvel Studios had previously confirmed, all episodes of the show are expected to be released at once, as opposed to weekly debuts.

Additionally, the upcoming second season of What If…? is now expected to debut around Christmas Day in 2023, although no official date has been revealed. The franchise’s upcoming Agatha Harkness series, which has been most-recently operating under the title of Agatha: Coven of Chaos, is now delayed all the way to early fall of 2024. At San Diego Comic-Con 2022, Marvel Studios had indicated that the series would debut in Winter 2023/2024. According to the report, these decisions are being made both due to the ongoing writers and actors strikes in Hollywood, as well as Marvel’s desire to “make each title an event for fans and audiences.”

What Is Echo About?

The origin story of Echo revisits Maya Lopez, whose ruthless behavior in New York City catches up with her in her hometown. She must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community if she ever hopes to move forward. Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum, Stephen Broussard, Richie Palmer, Marion Dayre, and Jason Gavin (Blackfeet) are executive producers. Amy Rardin, Sydney Freeland, Christina King (Seminole), and Jennifer Booth are co-executive producers.

“I grew up not seeing anyone that looked like me on the screen, so now this generation will be able to have someone — a person of color who’s deaf — that they can see,” Cox explained in an interview late last year. “So having this authentic representation is amazing.”

“You will see, once she leaves New York, she’s faced with some issues,” Cox revealed. “So she goes to Oklahoma, where she originally lives. She will try to find the definition of family and community and what it means to her, because she’s been alone for so long. So she wants to try to get back involved with her family, and connect with her Indigenous roots as well.”

Will There Be Less Disney+ Series?

As some Star Wars and Marvel shows have debuted on the platform to lower viewership and less-positive ratings, Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted that the company might be scaling back on these original streaming projects.

“There have been some disappointments we would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better,” Iger explained in an interview with CNBC. “It’s reflective not as a problem from a personnel perspective, but I think in our in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been… To try and make Disney+ worthwhile, we made decisions that hurt other parts of the business. That’s likely true at least in part, but it’s also something that isn’t unique to Disney. With blockbuster box office hauls depressed across the board, it’s hard not to imagine that part of the problem is that the studios are so eager for a return to “normal” that they haven’t figured out a way to monetize the shorter exclusivity windows and higher overall volume of content creation that have been hallmarks of the streaming era.”

What do you think of these new Marvel Studios release windows? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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