Initial development work Marvel Television was launched in June 2010 and began making
television series set in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). By September 2018,
Marvel Studios was developing its own series for parent company
Disney's streaming service,
Disney+, to be centered on supporting characters from the
MCU films who had not starred in their own films. The
actors who portrayed the characters in the films were expected to reprise their roles for the series. Marvel Studios president
Kevin Feige was taking a "hands-on role" in each series' development, focusing on "continuity of story" with the films and "handling" the returning actors.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022), a
television special, was the first project Marvel Studios began planning for Disney+. In March 2019, Feige said the Marvel Studios series would take characters from the films, change them, and see those changes reflected in future films. New characters introduced in the series could also go on to appear in films. Disney gave Marvel Studios an initial mandate to create as much content as it could, as quickly as it could, to bolster the new streaming service. Feige announced the franchise's
Phase Four slate at
San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019, consisting of films and Disney+ event series. In September,
Variety reported that Marvel Television was likely being phased out in favor of the new Marvel Studios series. Feige was named the
chief creative officer of
Marvel Entertainment a month later and Marvel Television moved under Marvel Studios. In December, Feige stated that Marvel Studios' series were "a new type of cinematic" story and "for the first time... the MCU will be on your TV screen at home on Disney+ and interconnect with the movies and go back and forth". The next day, Marvel Television announced that it would shut down. In January 2020,
ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke said talks were beginning with Feige and Marvel Studios about what a Marvel Studios series on ABC could be, but she said Marvel's focus at that time was on the Disney+ series. Series for Marvel Studios'
Phase Five slate were confirmed at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022, where Feige announced that Phases Four, Five, and
Six would make up "
The Multiverse Saga". After beginning work on their first animated series,
What If...? (2021–2024), Marvel Studios was revealed in July 2021 to be creating an animation division, named
Marvel Studios Animation, to focus on a slate of Disney+ animated series. Also in 2021, the studio formed several production partnerships to develop new series for Disney+: in February,
Black Panther (2018) and
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) director
Ryan Coogler's production company
Proximity Media was set to work with the studio as part of a deal with
Walt Disney Television; that May,
WandaVision (2021)
head writer Jac Schaeffer signed a three-year deal with Marvel Studios and
20th Television; and in December,
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) director
Destin Daniel Cretton signed a multi-year television deal with Marvel Studios.
Initial approach to television Feige described Marvel Studios' approach to television in January 2021, explaining that streaming on Disney+ gave the studio flexibility with the formats for each series. He said some were developed as one-off
miniseries that were intended to lead into feature films, though additional seasons could be added to these in the future. Other series were always intended to cover multiple seasons, in addition to connecting to the films, such as
Loki (2021–2023). These could have several years between the release of seasons, similar to series like
Game of Thrones (2011–2019) and
Stranger Things (2016–2025). Feige said each miniseries or season was intended to be around six hours of content, but this would be split in different ways depending on the story, for example six one-hour-long episodes or nine half-hour episodes. Marvel Studios intended for each series to be an event. They were reported to have budgets of $100–150 million each, though some were as high as $200 million. The high costs were primarily attributed to actors' pay and visual effects. The deal structure used for actors to appear in these series and then continue on in films was one of the reasons many of Marvel's initial series did not receive a second season, because it would have made additional seasons too expensive to produce. Marvel Studios worked towards pre-established release dates, intending to release them on those dates no matter the state the series were in.
Brad Winderbaum, head of television and animation at Marvel Studios, said the series were produced in "waves", with many of the early series approached with a feature film structure that gave the characters one arc across a single,
serialized story. These were followed by series such as
Moon Knight (2022) that were intended to establish characters that would tie-in with the MCU's future plans. The earliest series were directed by a single person, but later series have multiple directors taking on different numbers of episodes. Feige said this happened due to a combination of logistics, the needs of each story, and the studio learning more about making longform television. The studio also began experimenting with more episodic storytelling after the first few series, such as their initial plans for
Daredevil: Born Again (2025–present). Marvel Studios initially used the term "head writer" instead of the traditional
showrunner title. They encouraged directors to join their series'
writers' rooms and take part in the creative process, as is done with their feature films, working alongside Feige and the Marvel Studios executives assigned to each series. Many of the junior executives had been production managers on MCU films and were able to act as production leads and liaisons between the head writers, Feige, and executives in the "
Marvel Studios Parliament"; Feige retained final approval for major creative issues. The studio's approach was confirmed by Schaeffer,
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) director
Kari Skogland, and
Loki season one director
Kate Herron. Skogland described it as "effective and efficient", feeling that the series were too much for a single showrunner to take on. Each series had multiple writers working in a writers' room under the head writer, and they also used "created for television by" credits for the head writers. Explaining the decision-making process and hierarchy for Marvel Studios' first three series,
Loki season one head writer
Michael Waldron said the head writer of each series would have final say on creative decisions before filming began. At that point, the series shifted to a "more feature centric model" where the director took on the role that a traditional showrunner might have and had the final say for creative decisions while on set and in post-production. The head writer was still present on set and during post-production for any necessary rewrites. Additional examples of directors taking more creative control on series from writers included
Mohamed Diab with
Moon Knight (2022) after head writer
Jeremy Slater quit; and
Kat Coiro with
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022), though head writer
Jessica Gao was brought back to oversee that series' post-production, "the rare Marvel head writer" to do so. Marvel Studios relied on their executives to shepherd each series and, as with their films, heavily relied on
reshoots during post-production to fix any issues. The series were described as being filmed "on the fly"; an example of this was
Secret Invasion (2023), which underwent extensive reshoots after several crew members, including head writer
Kyle Bradstreet and the series'
production and development executive
Chris Gary, were replaced during production.
Overhaul of television operations Marvel Studios changed its approach to developing series in 2022, moving to a more traditional model of putting multiple series into development that would not necessarily all be produced. This was part of wider changes to the studio's television approach that were revealed in October 2023: moving away from the head writer model in favor of showrunners; hiring dedicated executives to focus on television; and planning more multi-season series so audiences could form relationships with characters over time, rather than series just being one-off events. The studio came around to the idea of hiring showrunners after Gao returned to aid
She-Hulk in post-production, and after the critical and commercial failure of
Secret Invasion. Winderbaum said the studio was trying to "marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture", and he felt this would separate their streaming content from their theatrical films. Moving forward, showrunners would write television pilots and
series bibles to have a creative throughline for the entire production process, and series would not receive an official greenlight until the studio was confident in its pilot and bible. Despite the shift to a more traditional development model, Winderbaum said Marvel Studios would not shoot pilot episodes before a full series received a greenlight. He said they might shoot the first episode of a series ahead of the rest of principal photography to allow a "pivot" if any creative changes were deemed necessary. In 2024, Marvel Studios introduced
new labels under which its shows would be released, to indicate to audiences that they did not have to watch all of the studio's projects to understand the overall MCU story and could choose which storylines and characters under those labels to follow. Winderbaum explained that the studio's priorities had shifted to a new wave of multi-season series designed to be released annually, "more like television", with their own ongoing stories and fewer plans to cross-over with the films. He wanted to have an annual "seasonal cadence" that audiences could rely on, something that streaming services in general had struggled to do. Although the focus was to create more stand-alone content, Winderbaum said there would still be some connections to the larger MCU because "if it's not connected, it's severing what makes the MCU the MCU". Marvel Studios' series moving forward would be less focused on giving leading roles to characters from the films, as their initial series were, though those types of characters could still appear in supporting roles. Feige reiterated in July 2025 that they planned for future series to have less overlap with the films, comparing this to the Marvel Television
series on ABC and
Netflix. He said the studio was returning to the notion of "allowing a TV show to be a TV show". Jac Schaeffer was initially hired as the head writer of
WandaVision spin-off
Agatha All Along (2024) but was ultimately credited as showrunner, making her the first person to receive that title on a Marvel Studios series.
Agatha All Along was also the least expensive series from Marvel Studios to date, with a budget of less than $40 million. Winderbaum said this more "responsible" budgeting approach would be used for
Born Again and other series planned for the next few years. He later stated that
Wonder Man (2026) was "one of the lowest, if not the lowest" budgeted Marvel Studios television series so far.
New development work In February 2023, Disney CEO
Bob Iger said the company was re-evaluating the volume of content it output as a way to cut costs over the next few years. Reflecting on the large amount of Disney+ content released for the MCU's Phase Four, Feige said Marvel Studios would space out the releases of Phase Five and Six series so each could "get a chance to shine". Iger reiterated this in May 2024, saying Disney planned to release two Marvel series a year moving forward, down from around four series a year, as part of the company's larger strategy to reduce content output and focus on quality. Acknowledging that there were more Marvel series than that on the upcoming release schedule, he said some of these were a "vestige" of Disney's previous desire to increase Marvel's output. For example, Disney+ announced that six Marvel series would be released in 2025. Feige explained that many of these had been in development for a long time and were ready to be released, with some already being delayed due to Disney's request to reduce output. Feige disliked having to hold series for release that had been completed, such as
Ironheart (2025) and
Wonder Man, and hoped to avoid doing this again in the future. He expected the studio to begin releasing three series per year after 2025. The plan by May 2025 was to release two live-action and two animated projects a year, although Feige stated in July that he anticipated they would just make one live-action series a year moving forward.
VisionQuest, which was announced in May 2024, was the studio's first live-action series pickup in nearly two years and the first to move forward under the studio's new development approach. By February 2025, the studio was exploring giving second seasons to miniseries such as
Agatha All Along and
Hawkeye (2021). Winderbaum said some series released after the creative overhaul, such as
Marvel Zombies (2025) and
Wonder Man, had been caught in the middle of their changes and were not originally planned to have additional seasons. He said Marvel Television would be open to making more of those series if there was strong audience responses to them. By May 2025, Winderbaum had extended his contract with Marvel Studios to continue overseeing its television output, with Feige returning his focus to the studio's films. A second season of
Wonder Man was announced in March 2026, while a second season for
Marvel Zombies was confirmed the following month. == Labels and banners ==