Don’t Expect ‘The Falcon And The Winter Soldier’ To Last More Than One Season
We’re only a few weeks away from the debut ofThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the show that was originally intended to be Marvel Studios' first streaming series on Disney+. But according to one of the show’s stars, the six episodes fans see in that first season might be all there is when it comes to the television adventures of Falcon and Bucky Barnes. But could those adventures continue under a different title?
In a recent profile ofThe Falcon and the Winter SoldierstarAnthony MackieinVariety, the outlet reports that “while bound by standard Marvel-grade secrecy, the actor confirms there have been no discussions of a second season forThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”
Last week, Marvel Studios presidentKevin Feigeexplained that the show would only be six episodes as opposed to the nine episodes we’ll see forWandaVision. “Six hours is what we landed on as the best way to tell our story,” he told Deadline. “Six hours, whether it’s six episodes, or nine shorter episodes likeWandaVision.The shows aren’t inexpensive, so the per-episode cost is very high and to get that bar I was talking about.” He wasn’t kidding about the show being costly to produce: the first season ofThe Falcon and the Winter Soldierreportedly cost a cool $150 million.
But while we will almost assuredly see Sam Wilson/Falcon and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier team up again in future Marvel Studios movies, could the duo also return to the small screen in a slightly different way? Maybe Feige and Mackie are being coy with their wording here: perhaps there have been no discussions about a second season ofThe Falcon and the Winter Soldierbecause that series is all about Falcon grappling with the legacy of Captain America and deciding to officially take the mantle from Steve Rogers. But what about aCaptain America and Buckyshow exploring a different set of ideas? (After all, that was a comic book title at one point.)
An approach like that would give the studio the chance to further dig into these characters' stories in different contexts. (It also would create a sort of revolving door scenario for the behind-the-scenes creatives like the showrunner and the director, who would probably get booted in favor of new voices coming in; I have mixed feelings about that.)
The Falcon and the Winter Soldierseason 1 premieres on Disney+ onMarch 19,2021.
