With so much chatter surrounding Marvel Studios' plans to overhaul the Multiverse Saga, we're not exactly surprised to see an increase in rumours. Earlier this week, it was claimed the plan is to move away from "Special Presentations," while it's no secret that the general hope is to get back to quality over quantity.
In terms of the studio's streaming offerings, it's clear that the days of every character getting their own series are over. Initially, the likes of WandaVision, Loki, and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier were all clearly important to the MCU's future and a must-see for fans; the same, sadly, has now been said for Secret Invasion and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
A new "Marvel Spotlight" banner is expected to be the home for largely standalone projects such as Echo, while we've heard the idea is for showrunners to be hired to take charge of these small screen stories in the same manner as a traditional TV series.
Previously, Marvel Studios had been making them like movies and trying to fix what didn't work in post-production, a costly and complicated approach.
This will likely mean we'll see multi-season TV shows about specific characters rather than largely random stories about superheroes who are introduced and then fade back into the background ('member Moon Knight?).
According to scooper Daniel Richtman, Marvel Studios is considering a number of different characters for these new-style shows, including The Punisher, Ghost Rider, Alpha Flight, The Runaways, Jessica Jones, and select members of the X-Men.
The Punisher and Jessica Jones have already starred in Netflix series, so putting them under the "Marvel Spotlight" banner with a TV-MA rating would make perfect sense. As for Ghost Rider, fans have been demanding to see the Spirit of Vengeance in the MCU for years now, especially after Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Runaways is a little more surprising seeing as they had a three-season run on Hulu and we'd bet on the team being rebooted.
As for Alpha Flight, putting the spotlight on that Canadian team of superheroes - which is closely tied to Wolverine - would be a smart way to take advantage of the many characters Marvel Studios acquired in the Disney/Fox merger. That also applies to those unspecified X-Men, of course.
We'll see what happens, but if there's one thing we can be certain of right...it's that nothing in the MCU is certain. The Multiverse Saga is still in a state of flux, so only time will tell where we go from here.