Since the initial announcement of Marvel’s upcoming Disney+ shows, it was clear they would tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a way that previous Marvel TV shows (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., etc.) never did. Series like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and WandaVision will bring movie stars to the world of streaming and serve as a storytelling bridge between MCU films.

We knew about some of those connections already, but in a new interview, Marvel’s Kevin Feige has revealed another pairing to look out for – and he explained how one of them transitioned from a film project into a streaming series. Read about the Loki Doctor Strange connection below, and how Hawkeye was planned as a movie.



Bloomberg has an extensive profile about the impending debut of Disney+, recounting some of the key moments in the lead-up to next week’s launch. The piece describes how Kevin Feige pitched some of the shows to the cast at the Avengers: Infinity War premiere since many of them were gathered in one place, but how Feige was “more nervous” about one pitch than the others. Marvel reportedly had a deal in place for actor Jeremy Renner to star in a Hawkeye movie, but when Disney+ came around, Feige wanted to change things up and turn that project into a series instead. Apparently Renner took the news well: “He totally got it and said, ‘Let’s do it,'” Feige said.

In 2014, Renner indicated that he wasn’t interested in starring in his own movie, but a couple of years later, he said he was open to exploring the character more in a TV show.

But that wasn’t the only piece of news Feige unveiled. He also says the Loki show will tie directly into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

He declines to discuss the budget for the shows—including reports Disney is spending as much as $25 million per episode on some Marvel shows, more than HBO is believed to have spent during the final season of Game of Thrones. He does drop one little morsel, though. If you want to understand everything in future Marvel movies, he says, you’ll probably need a Disney+ subscription, because events from the new shows will factor into forthcoming films such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The Scarlet Witch will be a key character in that movie, and Feige points out that the Loki series will tie in, too. “I’m not sure we’ve actually acknowledged that before,” he says. “But it does.”

The Scarlet Witch connection isn’t new – Feige mentioned that on stage at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con – but the Loki Doctor Strange link is fresh information. It’s not super suprising, given Strange’s ability to tap into the multiverse and how Loki escaped with the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame, but it’s still interesting to hear.

Feige’s sentiment about needing to see the Disney+ shows in order to understand everything in the upcoming movies isn’t new, but it’s yet another confirmation of comments he’s made previously. “[Characters will] be changing, evolving, growing in those event series and then those changes will be reflected in their next film appearances,” he said back in April. “These episodes will intersect with the movies in a very big way. It’s a totally new form of storytelling that we get to play with and explore.”

Hawkeye and Loki are slated to arrive sometime in Disney+’s second year, while Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 7, 2021.