Marvel Creates ‘Spotlight’ Banner for Titles Without ‘Larger MCU Continuity’; ‘The Marvels’ Director Calls It ‘Trial and Error’ Figuring Out What Prior Info Viewers Needed
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Marvel Studios is set to launch a new banner titled “Marvel Spotlight” with the upcoming release of the limited series “Echo,” starring Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez. The character made her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in “Hawkeye,” but knowledge of that series and the MCU at large won’t be a requirement to watch “Echo.”
Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, recently told Marvel.com that Marvel Spotlight “gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of ‘Echo,’ focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn’t need to read ‘Avengers’ or ‘Fantastic Four’ to enjoy a ‘Ghost Rider’ Spotlight comic, our audience doesn’t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what’s happening in Maya’s story.”
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Marvel.com adds that Marvel Spotlight is “rooted in Marvel Comics’ 85-year publishing history: Spotlight was an anthology comic book series first introduced in 1971 and was the origin of beloved Marvel characters like Ghost Rider and Spider-Woman.”
Projects released under the Marvel Spotlight banner will begin with a new logo and musical theme composed by Oscar winner and “Werewolf by Night” director Michael Giacchino. The goal with Marvel Spotlight appears to alleviate the pressure some viewers feel of having to keep up with every MCU title, which now spans over 30 titles and counting across film and Disney+ series. The Marvel Spotlight banner on a series or film makes it clear that prior MCU knowledge is not needed to view the respective title.
When it comes to Marvel’s upcoming theatrical release “The Marvels,” featuring Brie Larson’s return as Captain Marvel, pre-existing knowledge of the MCU will be a requirement to a certain extent. The film teams up Larson with Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan from “Ms. Marvel” and Teyonah Parris’s Monica Rambeau from “WandaVision.” In a sense, “The Marvels” is a sequel to “Captain Marvel,” “Ms. Marvel,” “WandaVision” and the Nick Fury-centric series “Secret Invasion,” as the film also features Samuel L. Jackson’s beloved agent.
“The Marvels” director Nia DaCosta recently told Total Film magazine that it was “trial and error” figuring out how much of her film needed to depend on viewers’ knowledge of those aforementioned films and series. In the movie, the three characters find themselves swapping places when they try to use their light-based powers. Because the characters are baffled by this plot development, DaCosta felt more comfortable leaving viewers who maybe didn’t see “Ms. Marvel” a bit puzzled.
“I definitely wanted, because they’re so disoriented with the switching, for people to be inside of their experience,” DaCosta said. “I wanted it to be very subjective; and each of them is doing very different things when the switching starts so, yeah, I wanted it to feel as jarring for the audience as it is for them.”
“We have ‘Ms. Marvel’, the TV show, ‘Captain Marvel,’ ‘WandaVision,’ and it was kind of a constant negotiation to figure out, ‘Okay, how much information do people need?’ It was a real trial and error,” the director added. “We don’t want people to have to watch anything else but, of course, you also have to be honest and be like, ‘This is the [33rd] project in this universe. It’s sort of a sequel to five different things. So at a certain point, you have to just be like, ‘Okay, yeah, there are some things that we can’t get in here, but it’ll be fun.'”
All five episodes of “Echo” will stream on Disney+ and Hulu on Jan. 10, 2024. “The Marvels” opens in theaters nationwide Nov. 17 from Disney.
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