MarvelBlog News for July 2nd, 2023

An upcoming Disney+ series reportedly came close to getting “Batgirled.”

Also, Anthony Mackie once believed Marvel had hired him as the Black Panther.

Source: Marvel Studios

We’ll talk about these stories and provide an update on various labor strikes in this week’s MarvelBlog News.

What Does Batgirl Have to Do with the MCU?

Photo: Looper

When David Zaslav’s Discovery performed a leveraged takeover of Warner Bros. disguised as a merger, he fully intended to cut costs everywhere.

Zaslav knows nothing about quality content, instead earning a fortune by creating cheap reality programs and then selling ads during the broadcasts.

From day one, the new Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) functioned as the shotgun wedding of a circular part jammed into a square hole.

Source: Marvel Studios

After Zaslav’s early attempts at WBD failed to generate revenue, accountants alerted him to a different proposition.

The newly merged company could earn tax breaks, the equivalent of found money for a corporation, by banishing some programs into the ether.

Specifically, WBD could take programs airing on Max, then known as HBO Max, and remove them from the streaming service.

Photo: Marvel Studios

Seemingly overnight, hundreds of episodes of television vanished from HBO Max.

In the process, Zaslav saved WBD lots of money by ending residual payments to the content creators. He is a loathsome person.

Even worse, Zaslav carefully evaluated the upcoming theatrical release schedule for Warner Bros.

Photo: Disney/Marvel

Despite the fact that Zaslav had never worked in Hollywood, he anointed himself as the decider for which films would become blockbusters.

The would-be studio boss settled on titles like House Party, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Shazam!: Fury of the Gods, and The Flash as acceptable releases.

We’re not talking about a brilliant mind here, folks.

Source: Marvel Studios

Sadly, some of the movies he pulled from the release schedule suffered the same fate as HBO Max series. Disney killed them for tax breaks.

Specifically, Zaslav chose not to release Batgirl, a $90 million production, for the tax benefits.

A completely finished product has yet to debut in theaters and possibly never well, all because of a failed corporate takeover.

Source: Marvel Studios

Disney Follows the Wrong Model

You may wonder what the cautionary tale of Batgirl has to do with the MCU.

After all, the DC Universe is little more than a cheap knockoff of the MCU and always has been.

In fact, just last week, CNBC posted an article with the headline, “Warner Bros. needs to stop copying Disney and let its superheroes fly solo.”

Image: Marvel

Despite this fact, Disney has followed the Zaslav model in one shocking way.

Disney+ and Hulu recently removed several series from the streaming services for the tax incentives.

Some of these titles were even Marvel shows. Most notably, Marvel’s Runaways is no longer available for streaming.

Image: Hulu

Disney spent a LOT of money on that former Hulu series, but it recognized an opportunity to recoup some of its investment on a less popular show.

Eventually, some streaming service like Pluto TV will add Runaways, paying Disney for the privilege and possibly even splitting some of the ad revenue.

Disney has determined that strategy will earn more money from Runaways than simply hosting it on Hulu and Disney+.

Believe it or not, that’s the preferred goal for content creators whose shows vanish.

The people who worked on Batgirl are wholly out of luck. Something that never airs comes with additional hurdles when it’s used as a tax write-off.

That’s why a recent comment from a noted Marvel stuntman drew attention.

Source: Marvel Studios

Which MCU Title Might Get Batgirled?

Chris Brewster, who performed stunts on Ms. Marvel, Loki, and Daredevil in the MCU, has become quite influential in Hollywood.

In fact, Brewster was the stunt coordinator for DC’s Black Adam. Recently, Brewster appeared on a podcast and said:

“I always get the word of mouth. I heard they were going to ‘Batgirl’ (Echo), because they weren’t happy with it.

Source: Disney+

Now they’re doing reshoots and are planning on airing it.

But I think that could also have something to do with the fact that there’s a strike, and there’s not a lot of content right now.

So, (Disney is thinking) “we have it made already.””

Source: Marvel Studios

YIKES!

If Brewster is correct here, Disney dislikes Echo so much that the company seriously considered never airing it.

The belief Brewster presents is that the only reason Disney will air the series is that the streaming service will lack content due to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.

Source: Marvel Studios

That’s…not a ringing endorsement. We should calibrate our expectations accordingly.

Speaking of the WGA strike, we’re all awaiting word on what the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) will do.

Recently, the Directors Guild of America reached a deal with Hollywood’s power brokers.

SAG technically should have gone on strike at the stroke of midnight on July 1^st. That didn’t happen, though.

Instead, they extended their negotiating window until July 12^th, which makes sense.

Nobody wanted to perform intense labor negotiations during a holiday week.

Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger. Photo: Marvel

So, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and SAG agreed to kick the can down the road for a couple of weeks.

Disney could use a quick settlement on this so that it can focus on course-correcting the MCU. Rumors persist that The Marvels isn’t testing well, either.