Much has been made out of the MCU having a bad year in 2023, one which has even cast doubt on the longevity of the once-invincible franchise, but 2024 has only just begun and things are already looking up.
Although we’ve only got the one movie releasing over the next 12 months, Marvel Studios kicked off the year with a bang by premiering the five-part Echo on Disney Plus in early January. Things weren’t plain-sailing for the Hawkeye spinoff, and Daredevil: Born Again prelude, thanks to some bad press surrounding its long delay, unusual release strategy, and middling reviews, but we have reason to believe that Marvel will consider this one to be a slam-dunk success.
Not only that, but its fiscally smart cost-to-benefit ratio likely means that it’s about to shape the future of the MCU on the small screen.
Echo‘s thrifty budget and streaming success means Marvel Spotlight is the way forward
Echo‘s budget has been outed, and it’s quite a shock. According to Forbes, Echo only came with a $40 million price tag, which makes it the cheapest Marvel Studios series of the lot by a huge margin. For contrast, costly disasters Secret Invasion and She-Hulk set the studio back a whopping $212 million and $225 million, respectively, making them as expensive as an Avengers movie. Tatiana Maslany has even openly stated that She-Hulk season 2 is unlikely to happen because the show “blew” its budget.
What’s more, on the back of this Ant-Man-sized budget, Echo appears to have been a quiet hit. Although specific figures have yet to be revealed, the Alaqua Cox vehicle is known to have topped both the Disney Plus and Hulu charts following its simultaneous streaming release (via Deadline). It’s also understood that it led to increased numbers on those catching on Daredevil and the newly canonized Defenders Saga shows too.
When you take a look at this information, there seems only one course open to Kevin Feige; expedite the Marvel Spotlight initiative and ditch the rest. Intended as a banner for street-level, standalone, (and, let’s be honest, cheaper), MCU shows, Marvel Spotlight was launched with Echo and will likely be used for Daredevil: Born Again and its future offspring. Clearly, audiences are hungry for more content set in the DD corner of this universe, and if the studio only needs to spend pennies to send them to the top of streaming charts, then why would they deny the people what they want?
All the signs are pointing to Marvel delivering fewer flashy event miniseries and more, what I’m going to christen, meat-and-potatoes MCU shows — those series that do away with all the CGI and movie tie-ins and focus on old-school gritty vigilantes. You know, basically exactly what Netflix did to great success before Disney Plus was invented. Make no mistake, the echoes of Echo could be felt in this franchise for years to come.
