Marvel Studios Kevin Feige kicked off a chorus of complaints last week after declaring that in order to understand everything happening in future Marvel movies, people would have to subscribe to Disney+.
Disney executives Ricky Strauss and Agnes Chu, both directly involved in overseeing Disney+ content, further explained Feige and Marvel’s approach to connecting with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. WandaVision, a series that stars Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany as Vision, is the go-to example. Both that series and Loki, the Disney+ Marvel series that focuses on Tom Hiddleston’s popular character, will play into the second Doctor Strange movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
“Specifically with a series like WandaVision, you will get to understand more about the Scarlet Witch in a way that informs her character, which we will see from her in future Marvel movies,” Chu told The Verge.
Neither executives specifically addressed just how much Scarlet Witch’s arc in WandaVision would relate to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness plot-wise. Instead, both reiterated that having Feige heading development on both the film and TV side would help keep it consistent.
“Kevin’s a genius, and he has so many different stories that he wants to tell with such a large variety of Marvel characters,” Chu added. “Some of them are better told in an episodic format. There’s just more hours where you can really get in-depth with those characters.”
Spacing out theatrical releases and new Marvel shows on Disney+ should help fans from burning out on the MCU, according to Disney executives. It’s not just Marvel movies that will receive this treatment; there are several Star Wars projects in development and some could intersect with new movies in the future. Disney+ gives the company a chance to explore how movies and shows can work together.
“One of the advantages that we’ve had with Marvel is the ability to take these stories and migrate them from the big screen on to Disney+ in a way that we’ve never been able to do before with episodic content,” Strauss told The Verge. “When those stories are over in those seasons, they can migrate back to the big screen, and then back to Disney+, so the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not just a theatrical play. It’s also for the streaming service.”
If anyone can figure out how to execute it properly, it’s Feige, but that hasn’t convinced everyone it’s a feat Disney can pull off. Marvel has tried more gimmicky tie-ins, both on- and off-screen. In fact, a portion of Marvel Comics’ run in the ’90s was defined by complex and exhaustive crossover events that led to ridicule and headaches years later from the comics community. That was pre-MCU, but the idea somewhat continued. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD aired an episode directly leading up to Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015. The move was as much a marketing strategy as it was a content play; intertwining the two helped boost Agents of SHIELD’s ratings and increased attention on Age of Ultron.
Using WandaVision, Loki, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness puts Disney in the same boat. Disney wants to grow its streaming service as fast as it possibly can, a difficult feat for any company. Leveraging the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to boost subscriptions is an exclusive advantage for Disney — one that Chu says is “only something this company can do.”
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