After 17 years with the company, it would be right to say that Marvel Studios Head of Streaming, Television and Animation, Brad Winderbaum, has seen it all. After working as an assistant to Louis D’Esposito on 2008’s Iron Man, Winderbaum climbed company ladder and is now one of the most influential voices working behind the scenes at Marvel. Given the scope of that influence, when Winderbaum feels strongly about the direction of a project, it’s good news for that project.
In the case of Marvel Animation’s upcoming streaming series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which debuts on January 29th, Winderbaum‘s positivity about the project seems to have it poised to make a record-breaking run on Disney Plus.
What Jeff is building brick by brick in this show is starting to pay off. You feel it in season 1. You grow connected to these characters so when everything starts to lock into place and starts to pay off by the end of the season, I feel it in my soul. It just gets deeper and deeper in subsequent seasons.
-Brad Winderbaum
In an interview with The Movie Podcast, Winderbaum not only confirmed that the previously announced second season of the series is already deep into development but also that a third season has already been given the go-ahead.
“We’re greenlit for season three so in a couple of weeks, I’m going to hear [Jeff Trammell ‘s] pitch for the third season of this show,” said Winderbaum.
With that, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man joins Marvel Animation’s What If…? and X-Men ’97 as the only Marvel Studios’ streaming series to find life beyond a second season. Like X-Men ’97, the first season Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man consists of 10 episodes which means, should subsequent seasons also receive 10-episode orders, it looks to be on track to be the first streaming series to run for at least 30 episodes, especially with development on X-Men ’97 slowing down.
With a great Spidey project comes a great responsibility to get Peter Parker right. It's easy to get Spidey right. Throw in some sweet shots of him swinging through the city, focus on the THWIPS and the quips and you're good. But getting Peter right is the true measure of success pic.twitter.com/TfZxdTOyvH
Early reactions to the new animated series have been overwhelmingly positive and Winderbaum seems to share that enthusiasm. “I’ve fallen so head over heels in love with these characters,” he said before updating the progress being made on Season 2. “By the way, I’ve now read all the scripts for season 2. We’re halfway through the animatics.” Though the animation process is a long one, Winderbaum‘s comments could point to a second season streaming on Disney Plus at some point in 2026.
Even as James Gunn and Peter Safran set out to build the DCU, the DC Studios’ co-chairs have made it clear that creatives will have freedom to tell stories through different mediums, genres and aesthetics. And so while Gunn’sSuperman looks to be a bright, pulpy take on the Man of Steel, it takes place in the same continuity as Mike Flannigan‘s body horror flick, Clayface, and James Mangold‘s Swamp Thing, described as a “simple gothic horror movie.”
The idea is, of course, in line with the long publishing history of DC Comics and should have a similar impact at DC Studios in that it will allow for original ideas to evolve into (hopefully) great superhero stories. One of the earliest test cases for the premise may well be Lanterns, a streaming series that continues to sound a lot like an HBO prestige series. And if one cast member is to be believed, fans may not quite be ready for what DC Studios is about to do with Hal Jordan and John Stewart’s “terrestrial-based investigation story.”
John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU…
-James Gunn
In an interview with Collider, Poorna Jagannathan, who was cast in a supporting role in Lanterns, described it as “the best sci-fi script I’ve ever read.”
“This is the first script that I’ve read that I understand why there’s an NDA,” explained Jagannathan. “Everything is so insane. It is the best writing that I have ever read.” Created by Ozark writer Chris Mundy, DC Comics ace Tom King and TV legend Damon Lindelof, Lanterns will focus on two of the corps‘ most well-known members, John Stewart and Hal Jordan who will be working as “supercops on Precinct Earth.”
“I don’t know anything about sci-fi, and I don’t care, actually,” continued Jagannathan. “But this script makes sci-fi seem like my world. It makes it so accessible to me. I understand everything about this world even though I don’t understand this world.”
The series, with an impressive cast led by Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre, had already begun to generate some buzz online and Jagannathan’s comments won’t do anything to temper expectations. With cameras set to roll this week, it may only be a matter of time before DC Studios gives fans a first look at Lanterns which is expected to stream in mid-2026.
Undeterred and determined to get Ridley, who it views as its “most valuable cinematic asset”, back on the big screen, Lucasfilm has renewed work on New Jedi Order. According to THR, The Bourne Ultimatum and The Banker scribe George Nolfi is the latest writer to take a crack at the script.
New Jedi Order will reportedly see Ridley’s Rey seek to build…a new Jedi order. Over the course of the Skywalker sequel trilogy, Rey not only unlocked her abilities but tapped into the Force in incredible and previously unseen ways. Though details about the new film have always been hard to come by and it’s unclear if Nolfi will be starting from scratch, it seems logical to assume that a decade and a half after defeating the First Order, Rey would be the most powerful Jedi ever seen in a project set in tht galaxy far, far away.
With director Shawn Levy‘s Untitled Star Wars film believed to be starting production this year and eyeing a December 17, 2027 now, New Jedi Order remains unscheduled for the time being as Lucasfilm has no further dates set aside for Star Wars films.
First introduced in ABC’s Challenge of the Superfriends in 1978, the Legion of Doom has since appeared across multiple mediums and become a staple of supervillainy for DC. Originally assembled by Lex Luthor, the Legion consisted of 13 baddies from the rogues galleries of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Green Lantern.
Over the years, different iterations of the team have added and subtracted members and grown the roster beyond the original 13. In any case, the group represents a sinister and serious threat to heroes of the DC Universe. And while it may be years down the road, there’s some chance that the all-new DCU might bring the characters together on the big screen for the first time.
With Nicholas Hoult already on board as Lex Luthor in Superman, a second key member of the Legion of Doom is now confirmed to be on the way as well. According to a trade report, Banshee and The Blacklist star Ulrich Thomsen has joined Lanterns as Sinestro.
In Lanterns, it seems Thomsen will be playing the charactsr as “a former Green Lantern who turned rogue and is described as ruthless yet undeniably charming. Sinestro’s manipulative nature drives his enduring obsession with his former mentee, Hal Jordan.” Traditionally, Sinestro has been Jordan’s mentor, making the DCU’s take a fresh one that could provide some unique narrative opportunities.
John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.
-James Gunn and Peter Safran
Lanterns will revolve around Green Lantern Corps members Hal Jordan and John Stewart finding an “ancient horror on Earth.” Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre were cast as Jordan and Stewart, respectively. Word is that Jordan will be a grizzled vet–which makes Chandler a great choice–and that Stewart, played by the up-and-coming Pierre, will be a new member of the Corps working with him as “supercops on Precinct Earth.” Nathan Fillion‘s Guy Gardner, who will debut in Superman, is also reportedly set to play a role in the series.
We have a few other Lanterns peppered in there but this is really a terrestrial based TV show which is almost like True Detective with a couple of Green Lanterns who are space cops watching over Precinct Earth in it they discover a terrifying mystery that ties into our largest story of the DCU.
In the early days of Marvel Studios, Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter assembled a group of individuals he called the Creative Committee. Composed of Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis, Marvel Comics publisher Dan Buckley, Marvel Entertainment President Alan Fine and Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, the Creative Committee provided feedback on each project as it developed.
Following a series of events that left him frustrated by the Creative Committee, Feige nearly left Marvel before a deal was struck with Disney CEO Bob Iger in 2015 that allowed for significant restructuring. As a result, Feige reported directly to Disney chair Alan Horn, pruning Perlmutter and his creative committee out of the film branch of Marvel Entertainment.
Beginning with 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel Studios began producing films without the influence of Perlmutter ‘s creative committee; however, before long, Feige began assembling his own team to help guide projects behind the scenes. First acknowledged in the credits of Black Panther, a collection of Marvel Studios’ long timers known as the Marvel Studios Parliament have been quietly helping to craft each MCU project.
Feige’s original roster was made up of Stephen Broussard, Eric Hauserman Carroll, Jonathan Schwartz, Trinh Tran and Brad Winderbaum, all of whom worked their way up the ladder and served as producers on several Marvel Studios projects. Nate Moore, who co-produced Captain America: The Winter Soldier before producing Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther, joined the team for Avengers: Endgame.
Since 2018, a member of the Parliament has served as a producer or executive producer on each project; however, it’s a collaborative effort that gets the ball rolling.”There definitely is a camaraderie for a lot of us who have been around for a long time just throwing ideas back and forth,” said Schwartz, who was an executive producer on cosmic corner projects such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and The Marvels while also producing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
“It’s great when you have people who have been through the process, and who you trust, and whose creative taste you trust, and everyone’s taste is different, and that’s part of what’s really useful about it,” Schwartz told us in 2021. “Not all of us see movies the same way, so we’re all able to bring something a little bit different.”
It’s not really a genre thing or a speciality thing. We all sort of go off together and talk about who wants to do what and what’s coming up, and we all kind of end up working on stuff we’re excited about. I just like martial arts movies and Shang-Chi felt like the right character to bring a martial arts movie to life, and so that was that I put my hand up and said I wanted to do Shang-Chi. That’s more or less the way it tends to happen, there’s a character we all want to do, or there’s a character one of us one of us wants to do, and we just talk about it and divide it up and things generally work out where people get to work on things they’re excited about.
-Jonathan Schwartz
In a 2022 interview with CinemaBlend, Moore explained that while the primary focus of the Parliament was to act as a “brain trust”, the team did also work as a cohesive continuity police, helping bring together info from Marvel Studios andarbel Television to avoid confusion. “I would say that’s certainly not just our responsibility,” said Moore of monitoring continuity, “because we have colleagues across both the movies and the shows who aren’t technically in Parliament, but who are incredibly instrumental in making sure the continuity maintains itself and that our different properties don’t step on each other.“
Parliament is essentially those of us who’ve been with the company for longer than we want to admit who sort of help each other with ideas across all the properties, regardless of whether it’s my movie or Jonathan [Schwartz]’s movie or Stephen [Broussard] ‘s movie. And so yeah, it’s nothing more than that. We kind of came up with the name as a lark and it kind of stuck, and now I’m forced to answer questions from my friends, like, ‘What’s Parliament?’ I’m like, ‘Oh boy.’ It really is just kind of a brain trust to help elevate the movies when we can.
-Nate Moore
For five years, the Parliament stayed intact and worked to shepherd 25ish projects through the pre and post-production processes. Following Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Carroll, who co-produced Spider-Man: Homecoming before working as an executive producer on Spider-Man: Far From Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, was no longer credited as a member of the team.
Beginning with 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel Studios longtime Head of Visual Development, Ryan Meinerding, filled the seat vacated by Carroll. In December 2024, Feige revealed that Moore was leaving Marvel Studios to pursue a new career trajectory. While it’s unclear what Moore’s last project as a member of Parliament might be, he will be working with the studio again in the future as a producer on the as-yet-undated Black Panther 3.
With Moore’s scheduled departure, it’s unclear if Feige will once again look to add to the team’s roster. As it stands, original members Broussard, Schwartz, Tran and Winderbaum, who also oversees Marvel Television and Marvel Animation, join Meinerding as the current iteration of the “brain trust” as the studio looks not only to continue to rebound from a rough couple of years but also bring the Multiverse Saga to a satisfying conclusion while also preparing to launch whatever comes next.
Disney did not respond to our request for comments on Meinerding’s addition to the Parliament.
Thrilled to see cameras roll at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden on Supergirl, with Craig Gillespie at the helm and the phenomenal Milly Alcock as our Kara Zor-El. Craig brings an incredible sensibility to this story, and Milly is every inch the unique #Supergirl envisioned by Tom King, Bilquis Evely & Ana Nogueira.
-James Gunn
Though Alcock‘s Supergirl will first appear in 2025’s Superman, this is the first time any image of the actress in character has been shared from set.Set in a bar, perhaps somewhere in the galaxy as seen in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #2, the photo shows Kara in casual wear rather than her costume. It also shows the same crest of the House of El featured in Gunn’s Superman.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #2
Based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s DC Comic series of the same name, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will see Kara travel the galaxy and ultimately do battle against the villainous Krem of the Yellow Hills, played by Matthias Schoenaerts.
In our story, we have Superman who was sent to Earth and raised by incredibly loving parents. Kara was on Krypton. She was on a piece of Krypton that drifted away from the planet and she lived there for the first fourteen years of her life in a horrible situation where she watched everyone around her die. So, she’s a much harsher and more fucked up Supergirl than you’ve been used to thus far.
-James Gunn
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will hit theaters on June 26, 2026.
Despite only making one live-action appearance in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Stephen Strange has remained a central character in the Multiverse Saga. While it remains to be seen how Marvel Studios ties the events of three seasons of Marvel Animation’s canonical animated series, What If…?, into the larger MCU narrative, one Stephen Strange Variant played an integral role from beginning to end.
Despite all that–and being a key player in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame–it’s hard to believe that there isn’t much, much more the studio could do with the character. His film appearances have neither truly scratched the surface of the weirdness of the character’s comic book counterpart nor taken advantage of his shared history with characters such as the Hulk, Namor or Clea, who was at least introduced in the last film. Even more surprising is the news that despite the character seemingly being a perfect fit as a primary foil for Doctor Doom, Strange will not appear in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday.
So what does the future hold for Strange? Cumberbatch promises the character will play a big role in Avengers: Secret Wars but surely the studio has more in store for a major Marvel Comics’ character played by one of Marvel Studios’ biggest starts…and it seems that they do. On the heels of a report that the powers that be have decided to move forward with a third installment in the Doctor Strange franchise, Cumberbatch addressed the potential threequel in an interview with Variety.
Though the star was careful not to give anything away, it’s clear things are moving forward with the project.
“They are very open to discussing where we go next,” said Cumberbatch, who will clearly have input on the direction of the project and its creative team.
Who do you want to write and direct the next one? What part of the comic lore do you want to explore so that Strange can keep evolving? He’s a very rich character to play. He’s a complex, contradictory, troubled human who’s got these extraordinary abilities, so there’s potent stuff to mess about with.
-Benedict Cumberbatch
At this point, it’s unclear if Doctor Strange 3 fits into the Multiverse Saga or if the studio sees the project as one that can help it launch its post-Multiverse plans. While it seems as though the build up to Avengers: Secret Wars might benefit from additional narrative runway–and that Strange’s importance to the overall story would dictate continuing his story before that film would be helpful–that would require moving the film again, something the studio may be unwilling to do. So, for now, whatever “potent stuff” Cumberbatch believes is in store for the character remains the stuff of speculation.
As part of Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at SDCC ’22, head honcho Kevin Feigerevealed plans to wrap up the Multiverse Saga with a pair of Avengers films set to hit theaters just one year apart. The first of those films, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, scheduled for May 2, 2025, written by Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania scribe Jeff Loveness and meant to be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, would have featured Jonathan Majors‘ Kang as the lead much in the same way Avengers: Infinity War did with Thanos.
In the original plan for Avengers 5, then called Kang Dynasty, Shang-Chi would’ve been one of the film’s main leads. A lot’s changed since then; Avengers 5 was meant to focus on Kang the Conqueror, but Marvel has since completely retooled the film to introduce Victor Von Doom.
-Inverse
Fast forward to January 2025: Majors and Marvel Studios have parted ways, Loveness was replaced by Michael Waldron who was replaced by Stephen McFeely, Cretton left to work on Spider-Man 4, Anthony and Joe Russo and just over four months before it’s original release date, the film, now called Avengers: Doomsday, hasn’t even begun production. It’s been widely assumed that the studio all but started from scratch once McFeely and the Russos came aboard but despite rumors and reports that Waldron‘s draft has been scrapped, Marvel has, of course, stayed quiet…until now.
In an interview with Variety, one of the studio’s biggest stars, Benedict Cumberbatch, not only confirmed that the studio has completely overhauled the film but also the cast. Once intended to play a major role in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, Cumberbatch revealed that Doctor Strange will not appear in Avengers: Doomsday.
Is that a spoiler? Fuck it!
-Benedict Cumberbatch
Cumberbatch provided a simple explanation as to why Strange won’t appear in the film, saying “the character not aligning with this part of the story.” Concerned fans shouldn’t worry themselves too much, however. The star also told Variety that Strange remains “quite central to where things might go” and that the character is “in a lot” of Avengers: Secret Wars, also written by McFeely and directed by the brothers Russo.
With Cumberbatch’s Master of the Mystic Arts no longer part of Avengers: Doomsday, the task of taking on Robert Downey Jr.‘s Doom looks to fall to the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Spider-Man and a group of Avengers that may just include some New* ones.
Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to begin principal photography this Spring ahead of a May 1, 2026 release.
In late 2022, following a swell of online support for him to play Charles Xavier in Marvel Studios’ X-Men franchise, Giancarlo Esposito took matters into his own hands in an attempt to land an MCU role. During a fan panel at Rose City Comic Con 2022, Esposito explained how the fan casting led to having his people reach out to Marvel Studios. “I finally had to have my people call Marvel and explain that, you know, that this is a fan want and we would love to work with you,” Esposito told the crowd.
But I feel as if there may be some mileage with me and Marvel. I know I love what they do. I know I love creativity. So who knows what could happen? Keep putting it out there.
Marketing for Captain America: Brave New World has contained plenty of Esposito’s Sidewinder, attempting to establish the character as some sort of menacing threat to Sam Wilson. And while nobody believes that Captain America is in any true danger from Sidewinder, it hasn’t stopped Esposito from over hyping the character.
Last Summer, Esposito teased Sidewinder as “a badass” and a departure from his usual roles. In a new interview with ABC, he repeated those claims, saying, “You’ve never seen me play a character like this. This guy knows how to use a rifle, a pistol, knives, (he’s) very very physical, active with his physicality, punches, kicks, all that.” And while that all checks out against the evidence available in the footage that’s been shared ahead of the film, Esposito also made a claim that caps into question his ability to be taken seriously when talking about Sidewinder.
“Part of the incorporation of Sidewinder’s colors I brought into the costume that I’m wearing,” he said. “I’m hoping that it gives them inspiration in movies to come that will allow me to take on more of that serpent persona.“
While it’s clear that Esposito will be playing a far more grounded and less flamboyant version of Sidewinder in Captain America: Brave New World, don’t tell him that. Perhaps Esposito’s comments about the similarities between the film and comic book characters costumes refer to the collar on his trench coat being similar in color to the comic book counterpart’s cape; perhaps his character has some fabulous footwear we haven’t seen just yet; perhaps, like with the character itself, Esposito is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Never tell me the odds! In a near unprecedented move for Lucasfilm, the studio has entered into negotiations with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars to lead its next Star Wars film. According to THR, Ryan Gosling is preparing to board director Shawn Levy‘s long-developing Star Wars film.
Despite a steady stream of Star Wars projects heading down the garbage chute (fly boy), THR’s report indicates that should Gosling and Lucasfilm come to terms on a deal, production on Levy‘s film–which he’s been developing since 2022–will go into production this Fall.
With production on The Mandalorian and Grogu, which will lead a new era of theatrical Star Wars projects, having recently wrapped, attention has turned toward Lucasfilm’s next film. While Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy‘s Rey-led film was originally expected to lead lead the charge back into theaters, the project has struggled to come together and was recently removed from Disney’s release schedule. And even as Dave Filoni and James Mangold continue development on their own untitled Star Wars films, it seems as though Levy’s film has jumped ahead in the queue and may end up filling the December 17, 2027 date Disney has set aside for Star Wars.
Levy’s film will reportedly be a standalone project and not part of the Skywalker Saga. As it stands, it seems as though that honor will fall to the trilogy of films being developed by Simon Kinberg, the co-creator of Star Wars Rebels and a recurring villain from Fox’s X-Men films.
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