Loki, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and more get premiere dates at Disney Plus
Marvel is going all out in 2021 to make up for the unforeseen lack of content in 2020 (the long wait for Black Widow is quite something, huh?). After the success of WandaVision on Disney+ and the anticipation for The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, which premieres on March 19, the release date for Marvel’s next television venture, Loki, was announced just in time for the Television Critics’ Association (TCA) winter panel. Led by Tom Hiddleston, Loki will debut on June 11.
Loki follows an alternate version of Loki after the events of Avengers: Endgame, when he stole the Tesseract and escaped, creating an alternate timeline after 2012. So, yeah, this particular God of Mischief hasn’t been reformed from villain to hero just yet. He’s brought in front of the mysterious organization Time Variance Authority and travels through time altering human history using the Tesseract, ending up trapped in his own crime thriller. Loki also stars Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, and Sasha Lane.
At the TCA panel, President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige also announced that he’s currently on the set of Ms. Marvel, starring newcomer Iman Vellani, and that production on She-Hulk will begin in a few weeks, followed by Moon Knight. Filming is also currently on for the Hailee Steinfeld-led series Hawkeye.
“We are developing all of these shows the way we’re developing our movies. When we start a movie, we hope there’s a part two and part three,” Feige said at the Marvel Q&A for the TCA 2021 winter press tour. “We’re hoping to make something people want to revisit enough that they want to see the story continue. That’s the way we’re proceeding right now.”
While there is no word yet on whether any of these Marvel shows will get more than one season on Disney+, Feige added that “some of the shows that I mention that we’re about to start filming, we are keeping in mind a structure that will lead to a season two or three in a more direct way than something like WandaVision, which goes into a feature,” referring to Elizabeth Olsen’s role in the upcoming Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.
The first of many planned Star Wars spin-off shows, the animated Star Wars: The Bad Batch, has also got a premiere date now. It will begin streaming on May 4 and in it, a group of elite clone troopers known as Clone Force 99 or the Bad Batch—they possess genetic mutations first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars—take on daring mercenary missions in the aftermath of the Clone War. The voice cast includes Dee Bradley Baker and Ming-Na Wen.
The other shows whose premiere dates were announced include sports dramedy Big Shot starring John Stamos and Yvette Nicole Brown (April 16), season two of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (May 14), The Mysterious Benedict Society starring Tony Hale and Kristen Schaal (June 25), Monsters Inc. sequel Monsters at Work (July 2), Josh Peck-starrer Turner & Hooch (July 16), and Chip ‘N’ Dale: Park Life (July 23).