The Corona Virus is currently shaping the world in very surprising ways. With many companies forced to close shop for some time, we are seeing more and more consequences throughout the industries. Hollywood is no different now that most major 2020 films won’t see a release until 2021. Marvel Studios had to change its entire Phase 4 layout with Black Widow being the only film released this year. With the merger of the film and TV divisions, Kevin Feige has more troubles to deal with and the first consequences are now official. According to the Hollywood Report, they were forced to cancel the deals made with showrunners Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher) and Paul Zbyszewski (Helstrom).

There are two interesting takeaways from this article. First of all, these showrunners did not have a deal with ABC Studios. While The Punisher was released on Netflix, the entire production was still through ABC. Now, it is interesting that these deals were made directly with Marvel TV and could also be a hint at how Feige‘s venture into Disney+ will be a very localized project. This could be the first hint of them moving away from ABC completely and everything being 100% inhouse production by Marvel Studios.

The second surprise is that even with Hellstrom‘s showrunner Zbyszewski‘s deal being terminated, the show is still confirmed to be released. So, there is the chance that while the overall deals have been canceled, he will still be involved with finishing the project for release. From an industry standpoint, this is not them getting rid of the last remnants of Jeph Loeb but rather a forced action to ensure future productions. The industry is preparing to terminate many multi-project deals as they do include a massive

What do you think of this situation? Are you looking forward to the release of Helstrom?

Source: Hollywood Reporter