Marvel Studios’ Disney Plus Shows Don’t Use Showrunners, and That Has Some TV Writers Worried

[spankmypirate]

Marvel Studios’ Disney Plus Shows Don’t Use Showrunners, and That Has Some TV Writers Worried https://t.co/PYrgBKAIVC
- Variety (@Variety) May 12, 2021

Variety has done a piece on Marvel's Disney+ shows, and it turns out that none of them use an actual showrunner so far. Malcolm Spellman, the Head Writer for Falcon and the Winter Soldier, was just

Comments

[anterrabre]

Considering how bad showrunners can ruin a show (GOT, Sleepy Hollow, 2nd season of American Gods, etc) I don't have a problem with this.

[ohmylol]

or they can make a show even better lol, i don't think that's a fair assesment , Breaking Bad, Watchmen, Better Call Saul, Succession, The Americans, all of them have great showrunners who made the tv show what it is.

[spankmypirate]

Took the words out of my mouth bb. It's no surprise that all those shows you mentioned have been acclaimed critically, it's a result of the showrunners knowing what they were doing, and doing it well.

I miss The Americans

[asnindie]

Also show runners have fought hard to push the envelope. If you leave it to white execs. Good luck.

[stuffedpanda]

Can somebody ELI5 this, I'm a bit confused.

[kris_terror]

So in movies, since it's just a one shoot deal and then the project wraps, the Director is the main creative force. Christopher Nolan for example would be the top person in charge of decisions for the Christian Bale Batman movies

[therearewords]

Why thank you.

[queenb727]

Just an extra note, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had one director for the whole season. It was a lot more like shooting a movie in that way.

[kris_terror]

I could see that. Wandavision felt very structured for TV cause each episode it would shift the sitcom styling, but Falcon and Winter Soldier very much felt like a 6 hour long movie and while I enjoyed parts of it, I think it could've just been a movie alone.

[euraylie]

Yeah, the pacing was way off for me.

[puro_desmadre]

This is complete and utter bullshit. It's also Disney+ way of working around unions and union-negotiated minimus. "Oh you were a showrunner on that CBS show? Well we can't pay you a showrunner salary on FALCON cause we don't have showrunners on this project."

Disney+ uses a tremendous amount of non-union labor on the front end (pre-production) and my guess is they will continue to push the needle to see how cheap they can get their product. Not surprised, but the level of greed is just...

[bellwetherr]

is this true of all d+ shows or just marvel properties? like, mandalorian seems to have a tranditional showrunner structure with favreau and filoni

[fried_twinkie]

I think the Lucasfilm properties are still following the showrunner structure (they’d have to to keep Filoni around) but all their animation is non-Union, which sucks. A lot of animation writers are fighting right now to have the WGA expand to cover them because the difference in pay between writing for live action vs animation is CRAZY when it’s the exact same amount of work for a writer.

[bellwetherr]

holy shit! is this true for all animation or just disney animation? i had no idea

[bellwetherr]

there is an absolute concern about people returning to the idea that it is the filmmaker that makes the story special, and not the writer

but shouldn't it be both??

[bttrsondaughter]

it should be both but there is a long standing belief that television is a writers medium, so if tv becomes more cinematic (aka everything starts being “6 hour movies”) it means that writers importance becomes diminished in favor of directors steering the vision of the show. this is kind of flawed thinking imo bc there are shows that are well written yet depend tremendously on visuals (Breaking Bad, Mad Men). But then there are shows that are terribly written but very well directed (Stranger Things season 3)

[bellwetherr]

yeah, to me like, everything disney/marvel does should be held under a super critical lense because of their power and influence BUT some of those quotes seem very questionable to me lol

i want BOTH

[ohmylol]

i think both are important but writing will always take the top spot imo, breaking bad relied a lot on visuals but it was writing what made it what it was

But also it's the balance on writing, directing and acting that makes a great tv show , that's why i always laughed at GoT winning all those "best drama" emmys when they always lost in writing, acting and directing lolol.