Disney+ for those who can't get enough franchise!

by Nathaniel R

Disney, the corporation that will one day have a complete monopoly of the entertainment business, made lots of Disney+ announcements this week. Gizmodo has the details on how much their streaming service will be like Netflix. If you haven't been playing along they've announced at least eight scripted episodic streaming series thus far though we don't really know how far these are from being realities but for the first one...

• The Mandalorian -- a Star Wars universe series starring Pedro Pascal which will be the first series launched on the streaming channel. It'll be available on the day Disney+ opens for business: November 12th, 2019
• Untitled Love, Simon Series - A series based on the sequel to the book that inspired the movie Love Simon about a gay teenager and his high school friends.
• Untitled Cassian Andors Series -- another Star Wars universe series, this one a prequel as it will star Diego Luna reprising his role from Rogue One in which of course the heroes actually died.
• WandaVision  - an Avengers spinoff series starring Elizabeth Olsen & Paul Bettany (we guess that means they're both getting resurrected in Endgame). We assume this will be the second series launched since it was announced a bit further back in time.
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - another Avengers spinoff series starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, so they're both getting resurrected in Endgame, too. This news surprises a bit because we half suspected that either Mackie or Stan would assume the Captain America mantle within the MCU once Chris Evans takes his final bow by way of Steve Rogers biting the dust (again just an assumption that the super soldier will die in Endgame). But it's hard to picture Marvel really letting characters appear on both the big screen and the small screen simultaneously. 
• Loki - Tom Hiddleston will reprise his role to explore Loki's past
• What If? - If you grew up with comic books in the 1970s or 1980s you might know this title. It was an anthology series in which Marvel used to let their artists and writers go wild with scenarios that couldn't happen within the canonical existing universe. This will be an animated series using their ever expanding gallery of heroes and villains. The first episode will be about Peggy Carter becoming the super soldier instead of Steve Rogers back in the 1940s.
• The Sandlot - This series will be based on the 1993 comedy about young kids on a baseball team.

The Sandlot (1993)

So a lot of boy content. Only one show with a female lead and she shares the leading duties? Boo!

Netflix cancelled all their Marvel superhero series (no doubt in anticipation of their upcoming competition) but strangely there has not been any indication of whether contractually these series can just shift over and start up again or whether they'd have to reboot or whether Marvel even wants to. At the very least it seems a shame to lose Jessica Jones and Daredevil as they were both strong series with terrific lead hero casting. 

Comments

[MDA]

Of course all of the Marvel and Star Wars movies are on their service, plus the Disney animated classics, but the surprise announcement to me was all 30 seasons of The Simpsons being ready to stream on day one; that's a big deal.

[Arlo]

I had no intention of getting this service, but completely forgot about the Star Wars TV shows until now. Don't tempt me.

[Michael Troutman]

They’re also doing a high fidelity tv show with Zoe Kravitz in the John Cusack role.

[Volvagia]

I mean, a lot of male shows, but NONE of those shows definitively solely star a straight white guy by American standards. Loki might wind up that way (straight is the question mark there, and I'd probably prefer that show getting moved to Hulu, because of that question mark), but The Sandlot is an ensemble that is probably going to be a bit more diverse than the 1993 original.
Also: I think the Marvel shows here are probably "done in one mid-budget miniseries", not ongoings, designed to do things the movies need done, but don't really have the time for. Think things like: Vision and Scarlet Witch's kids, Kate Bishop, those first two setting up for Young Avengers, and Falcon and Bucky's rivalry for "Who Deserves the Shield." Things like that. As for the rest of the Marvel shows? Jessica Jones and Agents of SHIELD are the only full shows I'd really cry over losing if main Marvel decides to explicitly toss the pre Disney+ TV stuff in the bin. As for Daredevil? The only major loss is Kingpin. Charlie Cox was good casting on paper, but they gave him NOTHING to work with. The structure was insane for all of them, as it is for most Netflix shows. To be perfectly honest, my best binges haven't been any of their originals. They were Star Trek: TOS and Friendship is Magic. Great shows with no serial elements and fairly light serial elements respectively. Anyone else agree with the idea that Netflix probably should have stuck it's flagpole much harder on the episodic end of television, or am I just nuts?