It is officially the end of an era for Marvel and Star Wars on Disney+, the two franchises that turned Disney’s streaming service into a home for blockbuster television. The Mandalorian arrived the day Disney+ launched in November 2019, and WandaVision began the MCU’s streaming chapter in early 2021. Ever since, both studios have kept a steady pipeline of new live-action shows waiting to begin filming.
For the first time in a long while, that pipeline is now empty. Disney+ canceled Wonder Man Season 2 on Thursday, reversing the renewal it announced in March, only days after Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed at San Diego Comic-Con that Nova will be a movie rather than a streaming series. Those two decisions leave no confirmed live-action MCU or Star Wars show on the platform’s slate that has not already finished filming. Once the last few completed seasons air, the well runs dry, which is unusual for Disney+.
Variety first reported the Wonder Man cancellation, which Deadline and other outlets quickly confirmed. The reversal has come as a surprise and a blow to fans who loved the show. The series was a breath of fresh air in the MCU given its unique premise and elite storytelling. Fans were ecstatic when the renewal was announced, making Wonder Man only the third live-action Marvel show on Disney+ to receive a second season, joining Loki and Daredevil: Born Again.
For Nova, its change of address had been reported before it became official at Comic-Con. Asked what Marvel had actually said about the project, Feige joked that the studio had said "not a damn thing," then confirmed the cosmic hero is getting a feature film, with Loki creator Michael Waldron set to write the script. Marvel originally developed Nova as a Disney+ series, with Moon Knight writer Sabir Pirzada penning it and Criminal Minds veteran Ed Bernero attached as showrunner, before shelving the project in February 2025 alongside fellow streaming efforts Strange Academy and Terror, Inc.
Only three live-action seasons now separate Disney+ from an empty shelf, and every one of them has wrapped production. VisionQuest, which filmed in London back in 2025, debuts on October 14 to close the trilogy WandaVision began. Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 finished shooting in New York on July 21, according to star Vincent D’Onofrio, ahead of its March 2027 release. Ahsoka Season 2 wrapped in October 2025 and arrives in early 2027, a window Rosario Dawson announced at Disney’s Upfront presentation in May.
Which Live-Action Shows Should Disney+ Greenlight Next?
Marvel and Star Wars series delivered some of the biggest audiences in Disney+ history, and the service still relies heavily on both brands to keep subscribers between theatrical releases. There's definitely still demand for more Marvel and Star Wars content, and both studios have a good number they can greenlight. Starting with the MCU, these are the live-action shows Disney+ should put into development next.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 4
Daredevil: Born Again is Marvel Television’s flagship and the first live-action Marvel Studios series to reach a third season, with a new batch of episodes released each March for two years running. Brad Winderbaum, who oversees Marvel Television, has said the studio now wants shows that can "last for multiple seasons," and no current MCU series fits that description better than Matt Murdock’s.
What the show does not have yet is an official Season 4 order. Confirming one would give the Disney+ slate a dependable centerpiece and keep the March tradition alive into 2028, right when the platform will need it most.
Loki Season 3
Loki remains the most-watched MCU series on Disney+, a distinction Feige himself has confirmed. Nielsen measured 5.23 billion minutes of viewing across the first season’s six-week run, and the Season 2 premiere drew 10.9 million views in three days, second among all Disney+ season premieres that year.
Season 2 ended in 2023 with Loki holding the multiverse’s timelines together at the end of time, and Tom Hiddleston returns in Avengers: Doomsday this December. If the next two Avengers films change his cosmic status, a third season is the obvious place to explore the fallout, and since fans love Loki, they’ll definitely tune in for another chapter.
Young Avengers
Marvel has assembled the Young Avengers team in pieces for half a decade. Kamala Khan recruited Kate Bishop in the credits scene of The Marvels while name-dropping Cassie Lang, Agatha All Along revealed Joe Locke’s Wiccan, and VisionQuest introduces Ruaridh Mollica as a reborn Tommy Maximoff this October. Nearly every future member debuted on Disney+, which makes the streamer the natural home for their team-up.
Feige addressed the team’s prospects in July 2025, telling reporters the appeal comes down to who these young heroes share the screen with, because "that’s what the Young Avengers are:"
"Potentially... In that case, it comes down to where’s the best story and where is the best strange alchemy. Who would be fun to see them with? Each other, because that’s what the Young Avengers are, but also mixing it up more."
Jessica Jones
Krysten Ritter is back in the fold. She returned as Jessica Jones in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, and Season 3 goes further by adding Mike Colter’s Luke Cage and Finn Jones’ Danny Rand for the first Defenders reunion since their Netflix days. Her own show ran three seasons on Netflix and remains one of the most acclaimed series Marvel has produced.
A revival would give Disney+ a second street-level pillar. A new Jessica Jones series focusing on her private investigator roots would make a compelling crime drama. While the first season of Jessica Jones executed this format beautifully, bringing that same detective-driven approach into the current MCU is well worth a shot.
An X-Men Character Series
Mutants headline the MCU’s next era. Feige has teased a mutant-centered saga once Avengers: Secret Wars resets the universe, and Jake Schreier is directing the X-Men reboot on the film side. Legacy stars such as Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen also appear in Avengers: Doomsday this December, while X-Men ’97 keeps showing how much pull the brand has in animation.
Live-action television has no X-Men presence at the moment. A series focused on one or two mutants would bridge the movies while the reboot takes shape. The franchise already has an audience that turned a 1990s cartoon revival into a streaming hit, so a live-action X-Men series seems like a no-brainer.
The Mandalorian Season 4
On the Star Wars side, the answer begins with the show that started everything. Nielsen crowned The Mandalorian the most-watched Disney+ original, with 14.5 billion minutes viewed in 2021 alone, and the series collected 15 Emmy wins across three seasons. Jon Favreau wrote scripts for a fourth season before the 2023 strikes, but Lucasfilm reworked that story into The Mandalorian and Grogu, which grossed roughly $342 million worldwide this summer, the lowest theatrical total in the franchise’s history.
Brendan Wayne, one of the performers behind Din Djarin, said in June that he believes audiences have "given us the permission to proceed:"
"We also know, or maybe only I do, that there is definitely a place in the world for more of us... I think the audiences have given us the permission to proceed. I don’t know if it’s going to be on the small screen or the big screen, my guess is the big screen, but I’m looking forward to it."
While Wayne is pushing for a theatrical return, the data suggests that Disney+ remains the ideal platform for a comeback. Din Djarin and Grogu became a phenomenon on the streamer, and Season 4 would let the pair continue their journey in the New Republic era.
A MandoVerse Crossover Event
Dave Filoni’s theatrical crossover, announced in 2023 as the climax of the MandoVerse storyline, has reportedly shifted to the back burner while Lucasfilm prioritizes next year’s Star Wars: Starfighter. That leaves Grand Admiral Thrawn’s war on the New Republic without a confirmed ending beyond Ahsoka Season 2.
If the film stays parked, Disney+ should finish the story where it began. A limited event series uniting Ahsoka Tano, Din Djarin, Bo-Katan Kryze, and the surviving Ghost crew would deliver the payoff a movie was supposed to provide, and streaming audiences have followed these characters faithfully for years.
An Ezra Bridger Series
Eman Esfandi made his live-action debut as Ezra Bridger in Ahsoka, and the Star Wars Rebels hero closed Season 1 back in the main galaxy wearing a New Republic uniform while Ahsoka and Sabine remained stranded on Peridea. He returns for Season 2, but his long-term future has no announced home.
Four animated seasons turned Ezra into one of the franchise’s most beloved Jedi, and his scrappy humor makes him even more interesting. A solo series following his service to the New Republic would give the MandoVerse another intriguing protagonist without relying so much on Din Djarin yet again.
A New High Republic Show
The Acolyte took live-action Star Wars to the High Republic era for the first time, and Disney+ canceled it after one season in 2024. That timeline deserves a much better adaptation, and Star Wars could take another crack at it. Lucasfilm’s High Republic publishing line has bestselling novels and comics, with a deep bench of Jedi and villains no show has touched.
A new series set over a century before the Skywalker saga would carry none of the timeline constraints boxing in the MandoVerse, proving that the franchise can thrive on streaming beyond one corner of the timeline.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
