Kevin Feige in Discussions to Develop a New Marvel Show With ABC
Here’s a surprise: after all the focus on moving the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s TV efforts to Disney+, it looks like a new TV series could created to air on ABC. But if it happens, it will be overseen by Marvel Studios executive Kevin Feige instead of retiring Marvel TV exec Jeph Loeb.
A new article from Deadline states that ABC has had conversations with Kevin Feige about potentially making a network television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke had the following to say about ABC’s interest in Marvel content:
“We love our partners at Marvel and we’re sad to see [Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D] go, it’s been a big part of our history. We’re looking forward to working with Kevin Feige and we’re at the very beginning of conversations with him now about what a Marvel and ABC show might look like. Right now, Marvel’s focus has been on Disney+, as it should be.”
Not included in the quote, but relevant to the conversation is the fact that they have not discussed specific characters that they might want to use, meaning that this proposed series is likely a long way from actually happening, presuming that it ever does. If Kevin Feige were to be involved with the series, then it would likely have some connection to the films or Disney+ shows. As it stands, however, Kevin Feige has plenty on his plate, and working on a network series on top of the six movies and eight television series that he’s expected to handle over the next two years seems like a lot before he even considers any other options.
So far, ABC has hosted three different Marvel shows on ABC: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which will be wrapping up this year with a 13-episode seventh season, Agent Carter, which was cancelled after two seasons and is believed to see some kind of belated resolution to its story on S.H.I.E.L.D., and Inhumans, which we don’t talk about and was cancelled after its initial outing. While the first few seasons of S.H.I.E.L.D. saw appearances from characters introduced in the movies (with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury being the biggest “get” that the series has ever had), Agent Carter is the only Marvel TV show across all channels and streaming services to be acknowledged in the films itself (likely due to Kevin Feige being involved with the first season of the show); Edwin Jarvis, a supporting character on the program, had a cameo in the 1970 sequence in Avengers: Endgame. Given that the Disney+ shows are said to be relevant to the movies going forward, and that they will introduce characters that will later appear on the big screen, it can be presumed that a Kevin Feige-produced network series would also be ripe for those kinds of crossovers.
Fans speculate that many of the shows developed under Jeph Loeb without Kevin Feige’s involvement will be retconned out of the MCU in favor of creating movie-friendly reboots of the characters, but how this may happen remains to be seen. It’s already suspected that Ms. Marvel will lay the groundwork for a new version of the Inhuman Royal Family to appear, with no connection to the poorly-reviewed ABC show that killed any momentum that the intellectual property had. Likewise, it has been suggested that the characters of the Defenders shows will be reimagined to fit the MCU, with rumors that Marvel may keep cast members like Charlie Cox, Jon Bernthal, and Krysten Ritter, but recast pretty much everyone else out there and ignore the stories that were set up on Netflix. For now, Loeb remains involved with the projects that he greenlit, which includes the likely one-and-done series Helstrom and several adult-oriented animated shows, but he is expected to leave once the transition period has ended, and he will not be greenlighting any more shows.
ABC will wrap up Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sometime this Summer.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
