After seven long days since the premiere,Lokiis getting ready to unleash its second episode tonight on Disney+, and will continue to wreak chaos in the current MCU timeline. The studio had since geared up with virtual press rounds, merchandise releases, and teaser clips from the show to promote it and validate the precedented acclaim and response the show has been receiving.
We are all well aware that Loki’s little stint inAvengers: Endgamehas sent the flow of time into disarray after the 2012 variant of the character, the one we saw inThe Avengers (2012), took the Tesseract and escaped custody. Yes, Captain America did put every other stone back in its place, closing all the loops, but, the tesseract he put back was from the 1970s, which he and Stark stole after Loki took off with 2012 one. As a result, Loki has opened branches of many alternate realities that theTime Variance Authoritymust fix with unlikely assistance from the God of Mischief himself.
Now the trailer has literally jinxed the audience with the idea that a villain from the popularMarvel Cinematic Universeis getting his own crime-thriller series. Watching Loki cross through multiple timelines, dystopian cities, and his iconic D.B. Cooper-style mid-flight departure via Bifrost were some of the crazy moments everyone’s waiting to understand and connect with the overall series. Quite little is known of the actual plot that will continue in future episodes, but we should be glad we ever got an entire series centered around the most likable villain of all times in the first place.
In a recent virtual conference with actor Tom Hiddleston and other executive producers of the show, Marvel Studios CCO Kevin Feige revealed a surprising detail concerning the conceptualization of the Disney+ series. On being asked about how the creators balanced the timelines in the show, that scales up the time-travel concept first introduced inEndgame, Feige revealed a decade-old plan Marvel Studios had originally thought of concerningLoki. Feige revealed how Marvel planned on making a short film surrounding the characterset in the 70s era.
“Early on, it was sort of the low-hanging fruit… There [were] ideas for a short film going back almost a decade for Loki running a Studio 54 in the 70s. I think we had some concept art of him on a horse. Thankfully, thanks to Michael and Kate, the story became more interesting than that.”
A decade back, Marvel started with a series of short films which it calledOne-Shots. TheMarvel One-Shotswere just more promotional material for DVDs and Blu-Ray editions at the time. The shorts were basically to make the then-new MCU much bigger, giving fans the first notion that what Marvel Studios was creating was an actual (virtually real) reality that people can live in and connect with. For example,The Consultant showed how Downey’s cameo inThe Incredible Hulk factored into the overall MCU lore.
Lokiwas supposedly a part of that same series, but the idea might not have worked out at the time. After all, having Loki run a nightclub in the 70s at the time when MCU wasn’t even into Phase II wouldn’t have really set in with the audience. But now, after everything that’s happened in the MCU, with all kinds of sorcery and time-altering stuff there is, having such a concept (now thankfully turned into a series) is just enthralling.
Marvel Studios hasn’t produced a One-Shot since the 2015 installmentAll Hail The King, which acted as an epilogue toIron Man 3, and confirmed the existence of Mandarin and the Ten Rings organization. Interestingly, both will eventually feature in the upcoming MCU film,Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ringscoming later this year.
Lokiis eventually going to get very crazy. The show looks promising and will bring the MCU into a new light. There are speculations thatLokiwill feature the Multiverse concept beforeDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessarrives. Earlier,Lokiwas set to tie in with theDoctor Strangesequel, however, ever since Feige announced the connection between the two, he and the other executive producers have never spoken about it.
It’s either possible that the connection between the show andDoctor Strange 2has been severed, orLokiis planning on surprising us with a big cameo, probably from Benedict Cumberbatch. Now only time could tell how the character himself, who is dead (killed by Thanos inInfinity War) in the primary timeline of the MCU will factor into the future of the franchise.
Lokipremiered on Disney+ as the third installment of Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Four, on June 9th, Wednesday, 2021.Lokiwill be a six-part miniseries with no season 2 currently under any plans for development. The show stars Tom Hiddleston (who also exec-produced the show), Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Sophia Di Martino, and Richard E. Grant. This news originated atTheDirect.com.
