It may be the end of an era for Marvel Television, as the production arm of Marvel Entertainment is reportedly ceding future live-action projects to its sister company Marvel Studios.
Multiple industry sources have indicated recently that Marvel Television's live-action future remains uncertain, following next year's end to its inaugural live-action series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the television studio dropping development on its planned Ghost Rider spinoff earlier this month. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios, a division of Walt Disney Studios and headed by studio president Kevin Feige, has steadily announced upcoming live-action programming tying in directly to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to begin premiering on Disney+ next year.
"Feige’s shows are so far beyond anything Marvel TV has been able to do," revealed one television agent in an interview with Variety. "He has access to all of these MCU characters that the other Marvel live-action stuff just doesn’t, not to mention way bigger budgets."
Headed by executive producer Jeph Loeb, Marvel Television branched out from its usual animation programming in 2013, with the launch of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. As the Marvel brand continued to garner millions of worldwide through the success of its feature films, Marvel Television entered a partnership with Netflix to create a line of live-action original programming which came to an end at the beginning of the year, with the premium streaming service cancelling Punisher and Jessica Jones simultaneously, the last of its two Marvel Television original series.
While Cloak & Dagger remains on Freeform and Runaways remains on Hulu, the only other live-action project Marvel Television has officially announced in development is Helstrom, as a Hulu original series slated to go into principal photography next month. Marvel Television remains committed to a line of Hulu original animated programming intended for mature audiences
To further lend credence to reports of Marvel Television gradually moving away from live-action programming, Ghost Rider was reportedly dropped because of Marvel Studios' desire to create its own project featuring the property. As two separate subsidiaries since August 2015, with separate oversight, Marvel Television began to move away from tying into the MCU after the division. Now with Marvel Studios officially entering the world of live-action television, this will bring all of its subsequent programming under a single production company.