Not content with dominating the box office in theaters, Marvel’s ambitions are increasingly driven by the small screen. The “Avengers” spin-off “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D” on ABC was the first, and will soon enter its third season despite tepid response from fans and disappointing ratings, while the Hayley Atwell-top-lining period piece “Agent Carter” was more fun, though less watched. The network is also developing a show with “12 Years A Slave” writer John Ridley, rumored to be an adaptation of “Cloak and Dagger” or “Ms. Marvel,” while Netflix has already debuted the well-received “Daredevil,” with “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist,” and “The Defenders” also coming up, not to mention the countless animated series out there too.
READ MORE: Joss Whedon Talks "Complicated" Nature Of The Marvel Movie And TV Universe
There’s always room for one more, and news arrived last night that an additional ABC series, mooted a few months back and thought to be dead, is moving ahead with a new title. Variety report that the network and Marvel have commissioned a pilot for “Marvel’s Most Wanted,” a show that, as reported previously, would focus on Bobbi Morse (“Friday Night Lights”’ Adrienne Palicki) and Lance Hunter (“Babylon”’s Nick Hunter), character who’ve become fan-favorites on “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D” after being introduced in the second season.
The potential show was proposed as a spin-off back in April, but was thought to be dead just a few weeks later, with a second season of “Agent Carter” arriving in its place. Now it’s back on, with “S.H.I.E.L.D.” writer-producers Jeffrey Bell and Paul Zbyszewski creating and writing the pilot, specifying that the “series is not a spinoff, per se, but rather an entirely new project solely focused on the two characters to continue their story.” You say potato, we say potato.
Palicki (whose character, also known as Mockingbird, is a long-time comics fixture) and Blood certainly gave a new sense of life to the series, and though plot details are under wraps, the title perhaps suggests the pair would be a sort of superheroic bounty hunters/fugitive finders, with a little “Hart To Hart”-ish married-couple banter to go along with it. We’ll see if this moves forward, but given the timeline, this could be well planned as a summer show for next year, and one hopefully closer to “Agent Carter” than “S.H.I.E.L.D.”