Marvel Studios has entered a brand new territory with their Disney+ shows. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was already constantly changing but this service opened up new doors and allowed them to explore beloved characters in new ways. So far, we’ve seen Wandavison and Falcon and The Winter Soldier show us a new side to heroes we watched on screen for years. Now, with the premiere of Loki approaching, fans might be interested to know that the trickster had a spin-off planned early on in his time in the MCU. With the recent strides in storytelling, it seems Marvel Studios always played around with the idea of exploring the trickster in a different timeline.
In a press junket for Loki, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that the studio danced around the idea of developing a short film for the character. He even references the former disco nightclub Studio 54 that went on to become a Broadway theatre.
There were ideas, as Tom will remember, for a short film going back almost a decade for Loki in the 70s. Like running a Studio 54 in the 70s. I think we had some concept art of him on a horse.
The project didn’t get much further than that. It wasn’t until director Kate Heron and head writer Michael Waldron joined the project that it had become “Infinitely more interesting” according to Feige through their ideas on how to spin the project. Marvel did explore the concept of short films with their Marvel One-Shots. These were included in their blu-ray releases that offered smaller stories in the MCU. It included the Agent Coulson-focused stories The Consultant and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer. Of course, the big standout was Ben Kingsley‘s return as Trevor Slattery in All Hail the King. It’s crazy to think how far the franchise has come now that we have high-budget series doing what these One-Shots originally were meant to do.
