Now that Marvel Studios taking an afternoon off is news that none of us can live without, it’s clear that the company has reached the singularity. That used to mean the time when artificial intelligence would surpass human capacity and control, but now simply refers to the moment when Marvel subsumed all popular culture and news. As the pre-Marvel life fades into the distant horizon, our sources of information gradually morph into the robotic face of Iron Man, speaking in a soothing monotone. With the acceptance that life is Marvel and Marvel is life, we have some earth-shattering news to report: Marvel has some sort of animated project, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in the works.
The exciting whisper of a notion, which is already expected to earn $400 billion for the company on the first day of its release, is definitely going to be a type of entertainment that will be animated. We can also confidently report that it will for sure be a movie, or a TV show, or a VOD release, or maybe another Netflix series. Possibly a Snapchat show? All of these multitudes were contained within the comment by Cort Lane, Marvel’s VP of Animation Development, at the Marvel Animation panel at Wondercon this year. His exact words were that an animated MCU project was “in the works,” which is 100 percent confirmation that something may possibly be happening involving people drawing pictures that look like the Hulk.
It does seem unlikely that this thrilling new thingamabob will be a TV series, given that Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man, and the upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy show already make up their own animated universe, and plunking down a new program in a completely different universe wouldn’t make much sense. Nonetheless, this is heart-stopping news, as this new animated whatchamacallit will definitely be one of the biggest releases of whatever format in whatever year it may or may not debut.