Now that the new season of TV shows are about to start, speculation is heating up even more about the possibility of superhero series. DC has Arrow and a potential Wonder Woman show being worked on, meanwhile Marvel is throwing ideas around left and right about SHIELD and others. Unfortunately, for all of Marvel's attempts at getting things off the ground, they're all failing to be picked up. In my mind, this is because they're approaching this the wrong way. For example, the Hulk television show will require a big budget for CGI to look decent or they'll just have a show about Banner and not Hulk – something that won't appeal to as many people as they'd like. A bad looking Hulk comes off silly and ridiculed, the good looking Hulk costs money that cuts into profits, and the lack of a Hulk leads to people tuning out. Meanwhile, Marvel has pitched ideas around of their lesser known entities, such as a Cloak and Dagger show or their pet project of a Jessica Jones television series. Once more, there are problems that need to be addressed with those two. The first being that they don't have the history to build a long running series around, the second being that female-lead action shows don't have the market that you'd think that they would have. Outside of rare instances, most of the time an action show or film has a female protagonist, the male audience doesn't connect with it and doesn't take it seriously (sounds sexist but it's true) and the female audience isn't as interested in the action, effectively displeasing both sides with no compromise. So what is Marvel to do? How can they have a hit show that is realistic but still has fantasy elements, doesn't cost a lot of money but doesn't look cheap, and can appeal to a wide audience?
I propose that the answer is simple:
HEROES FOR HIRE. Here's a breakdown of how I think this could work.
MARKETING
The title, albeit a little cheesy sounding in comparison to things like "The Dark Knight" and "Spider-Man", is simple enough that people will immediately know what it is conceptually. You need something recognizable for a television series so people would hear the title and know what they're getting into. I don't know how many times I've heard people disregard a show that they eventually do like purely because they didn't understand the title's connection to the plot (example:
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Superheroes are big nowadays and the only reason that there are so many hero-themed shows that fail is because they're all half-assed, watered down, hokey attempts at filling little niches (like
No Ordinary Family). You can ruin any show with horrible acting, no big name stars in the cast, and a campy attitude (I'm looking at you,
The Cape). This would need to be quite serious in terms of marketing. Take note not to misread that sentence as "gritty and dark". Instead, just make sure that there's no "we're laughing at ourselves and trying to be fun" mentality as that will just come off weak. That's not to say there shouldn't be some comedy, but think of it more along the lines of how you laughed at the humor in Iron Man versus the forced humor in Ghost Rider that made you roll your eyes and felt out of place and childish. The former strengthened your want to see the film and rewatch it while the latter's "feel like my skull's on fire" and pissing fire jokes caused people to scoff at the movie and never once take it seriously. When it looks like your show is disrespecting itself, how can you expect anyone else to respect it?
Another big aspect of marketing that would instantly give the show a firm foothold is to tie it into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What does that mean for the prospective Luke Cage film and others like that? It means they're abandoned. If Marvel really wanted to push them out, they'd have gotten them further developed by now. That's painfully obvious. Luke Cage will not be strong enough (no pun intended) to have a trilogy of films, nor will something like Moon Knight or Ronin anything of that sort. Tying this in as canon to the MCU will make people want to see it in hopes that there will be cameos of stars from the films (which, if you could do every so often within reason, would provide some strong connectivity and ratings boosts).
Finally, it kind of goes without being said, but just to throw it out there, the Disney relationship with Marvel means that this would clearly be a best fit for the ABC network as that's under Disney ownership. Being on ABC immediately gives it primetime network status and a noteworthy push just by the sheer fact that it isn't being hidden on some second rate channel's lineup (cough-CW-cough).
STORY AND CHARACTERS
Obviously, three of the main characters (if not THE three leads) would be Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones. This works not only as a contrast in personalities but also has a diverse cast in ethnicity, something that is never really a hindrance to a show. Naturally, this would be set in New York, meaning that there's potential for tons of cameos. Marvel has a nearly endless supply of characters that will never see prominence in a film series but could be utilized very well in this type of a format. Raise your hands if you'd like to see Iron Fist duke it out with antihero guest star Moon Knight? What about Jeryn Hogarth, their lawyer/business representative, having a little conference with a certain blind lawyer in red called Daredevil? You can't tell me Punisher wouldn't work in this as a guest star. Characters like Jenny Royce as their secretary could be a regular supporting role meanwhile you could use random characters like Prowler, Falcon, White Tiger, even Silver Sable's Wild Pack or lower level agents from SHIELD. The possibilities are countless, and you even leave yourself the option for spin-offs with said characters. [If this article gets a good response to it, I'll consider doing a fan cast for some of these roles, though that's not necessarily my specialty.]
As for the formatting of the show, the way I see it, would be similar in a lot of ways to USA's
Burn Notice program. For anyone that hasn't seen it, there's one primary plotline that carries over each season, with each season being a self-contained arc that drives that story. However, only half of each episode is dedicated to this umbrella plot. The other half of each episode is the team taking on a client and helping them out. Thus, each episode of Heroes for Hire could be about some bigger, season-wide or series-wide plotlines with some smaller stories told in each episode. You have more than enough time to divulge deeper into the origins of Danny Rand and everyone on the team as well as the guest stars which would naturally be the focal point of their respective episodes.
ACTION, SPECIAL EFFECTS, BUDGET, ETC
Since these characters are essentially all on the "street level" ranking, there's no need to have intense special effects to the level of a show involving Hulk or Silver Surfer or anything like that. The special effects wouldn't need to be that much more complicated than your average cop drama. The action, like everything else, would have to be taken seriously. This means no over-stylizations to "give it the comic book feel" and take the realism out of it (example, nobody is flying through the air in slow motion every time they get punched and slamming through a solid wall and getting back up as if they can just brush it off). As this IS a superhero show, it would need to have some action to it, but they would just need to be smart about it. Too little and you run the risk of boredom, but you have to stay within your budget – something that Marvel shouldn't have a problem producing considering the success that Avengers had this summer.
What are your thoughts on Marvel doing a show like this? Which characters would you like to see? Who could you see playing the certain roles? Let me know what you think.