Marvel Announces A Big Change To Disney+ Shows After Disastrous Phase 4 Reviews
In the lead-up to the release of "Echo" on Disney+, executive producer Brad Winderbaum shed some light on the state of MCU television. During a press junket (via Comicbook.com), the series exec explained that the team at Marvel Studios had learned a lot from the past struggles of Phase 4, adding, "We produced a lot of content very quickly, and we're primarily a filmmaking company. So, you can see that our first round of shows have a very movie-like structure: they arc-out the characters by the end; they feel like a standalone limited series."
While it was fun in theory, this approach didn't draw the kind of results the studio was looking for with Phase 4. With the MCU still in the midst of a prolonged slump in early 2024, it was clear that the current mix of movies and movie-like limited series wasn't working. Winderbaum declared that the studio was going to pivot. He detailed what this would look like, stating, "Moving forward, our content is going to feel a lot more like television."
The "Echo" episode count — which stands at five total installments — already signals a break from Disney+ MCU precedence, with most earlier series coming in at the six-episode mark. But it also seems to be initially going in the opposite direction from what Winderbaum is hinting at, as the producer described the new format for future MCU series thusly, "It kind of drives toward the horizon; drives towards the future, and keeps people engaged for longer periods of time, in the more leaned-back setting of your living room. To set it apart, frankly, from the big, cinematic event experiences in the movie theater."
The rough road of Phase 4 (and Phase 5)
Ironically, a traditional television format was originally something Kevin Feige and company were trying to avoid with streaming content. They initially wanted a movie-like streaming experience where they could utilize a serial format for more in-depth content between movies. Now that this has proven unsuccessful, it appears they are returning to the tried and true method of endlessly episodic stories.
The change was clearly needed, though. Few would argue that Phase 4 of the MCU was an overall disappointment. There were bright spots, like "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" and "Black Widow." However, unlike previous phases (where you had the occasional bad release), the majority of Phase 4 consisted of a string of struggling films. The phase contains multiple duds (relatively speaking), including "Thor: Love and Thunder," "Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness," and "Eternals" — which remains one of the only MCU movies to have an actual "Rotten" Rotten Tomatoes score.
Phase 4 was also where we got the first Disney+ MCU series. While some of these, like "WandaVision" and "Loki" were quite popular, it's easy to see how they siphoned a lot of the cross-over energy away from the larger Phase 4 trajectory. To be fair, the phase also took place in the wake of the Thanos storyline, and there was a lot of narrative rebuilding going on, but as Phase 5 took off, the momentum still wasn't picking up.
The good news is that, in a 2021 interview with Variety, Feige pointed out, "One of the fun things about streaming is the rules are loose, which allows for you to just follow creatively, where you want to go." Those creative adjustments are taking place, but time will tell if they actually work.