As it moves forward, Marvel is making concrete changes in how it makes TV. It now has plans to hire showrunners. Gao’s postproduction work on She-Hulk helped Marvel see that it would be helpful for its shows to have a creative throughline from start to finish.
“It’s a term we’ve not only grown comfortable with but also learned to embrace,” says Winderbaum of showrunners and Marvel TV’s intention to hire them.
The studio also plans on having full-time TV execs, rather than having executives straddle both television and film.
“We need executives that are dedicated to this medium, that are going to focus on streaming, focus on television,” says Winderbaum, “because they are two different forms.”
It also is revamping its development process. Showrunners will write pilots and show bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from She-Hulk to Secret Invasion, then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done.
And just as Loki, which returned Oct. 5, marked Marvel’s first season two of a series (out of nine TV shows to date), the studio plans on leaning into the idea of multiseason serialized TV, stepping away from the limited-series format that has defined it. Marvel wants to create shows that run several seasons, where characters can take time to develop relationships with the audience rather than feeling as if they are there as a setup for a big crossover event.
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