Plans for Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, are taking shape in advance of Thursday’s investor conference.
Jeremy Renner is the latest Marvel star who will appear in a limited series about his character, ace archer Hawkeye, known in real life as Clint Barton.
The series will focus on Barton passing his Avenger torch to a new superhero, Kate Bishop, who is a member of a next-gen Marvel group known as Young Avengers.
Renner is part of the cast of thousands who will appear in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Endgame, which opens in theaters on April 26. He’s been seen as Hawkeye in multiple Marvel movies since his first uncredited cameo in Thor in 2011. Since then, he’s also appeared in Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War.
Other Marvel characters—including Loki, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Falcon and Winter Solider—will be getting similar treatment on the new service with each series expected to run six to eight episodes.
Marvel previously had character-based series that ran on Netflix — including Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders and The Punisher — but all of those have departed Netflix in recent months.
Beyond Marvel, Disney is making other moves to stock its new service. On Tuesday, it signed Kenny Ortega, producer and director of High School Musical and other musical franchises, to a multi-year deal.
In addition to its fictional series, Disney+ also announced 10 new unscripted series on Wednesday. Two of those come from Marvel, while two more will come from the team behind Netflix’s Chef’s Table: David Gelb, Brian McGinn and Jason Sterman of Supper Club.
On the slate are such series as Be Our Chef; Cinema Relics: Iconic Art of the Movies; Encore!, produced by Kristen Bell; Marvel’s Hero Project, (Re)Connect; Rogue Trip; Shop Class and an untitled series tasked with showcasing what goes on behind the scenes at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Meanwhile, one series — High Fidelity, starring Zoe Kravitz — is headed to Hulu after being first developed for Disney+.
The family-focused service is slated to launch in the fourth quarter of this year with content from Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar. Library fare from new networks FX and National Geographic as well as Disney nets ABC, Freeform and Disney Channel also is expected to be available.
The Hollywood Reporter is collecting all of Disney+’s series announcements.
READ MORE: Variety, Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter
[Large image courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and Zuma Press/Jeff Gritchen]