Marvel TV boss Brad Winderbaum sees potential for one of the studio's Disney+ shows to run for four additional seasons. When Marvel Studios began releasing streaming TV shows, its properties were typically limited to one or two seasons at most, as has been the case with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Echo, She-Hulk, and several others. However, in recent years, Marvel has shifted its strategy and begun investing in multiple seasons for its TV shows from the start.
While none of Marvel's streaming shows have reached the four-season mark yet, Winderbaum stated at NYCC last year that Marvel Studios, via its Marvel Television branch, is now having early discussions for a five-season plan for the animated hit X-Men '97. "We're talking about Season 4 and 5 now," Winderbaum said, adding there's "more than possibly more to come." This multi-season plan is a historic first for Marvel Studios, as the studio has never discussed a five-season run for any of its scripted Disney+ series until now.
Marvel Studios had begun development on a second season of X-Men '97 by 2022, years before Season 1 was due to release. While fans are still waiting to see the results of that second season (which is part of Marvel's 2026 Disney+ slate), Marvel Studios seems to be continuing a trend by exploring Seasons 3 through 5 of X-Men '97 long ahead of time.
A five-season Marvel show would be the first for the studio since Agents of SHIELD (which was produced by ABC) finished its seven-season run in 2020. The studio released a slew of TV shows alongside the launch of Disney+, but very few of them received further seasons, aside from What If...?, Loki, and WandaVision.
Marvel TV Shows With Multi-Season Futures
While animation is much cheaper to produce than live-action, Marvel Studios' multi-season vision for X-Men '97, one of its highest-rated shows to date, is a sign that the studio is preparing to invest more heavily in serial shows rather than miniseries or one-offs.
This has become apparent on the live-action side as well, thanks to Daredevil: Born Again. The revival of the show on Disney+ was a welcome return of the Netflix series and characters that fans knew and loved, and now, with the Defenders' rights back in Marvel's hands, the studio seems prepared to go all-in on bringing each of these characters back.
Daredevil: Born Again has become the flagship entry point for the Netflix Marvel characters into the MCU, with Season 2 of the show bringing back Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones, and other characters, like Luke Cage and Iron Fist, poised to make a comeback. The fan reception to Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 already led to a Season 3 renewal in 2025, ahead of the show's Season 2 return in March 2026. At this pace, Daredevil: Born Again could be another annual show for the MCU, with Season 4 or Season 5 seeming entirely possible at this point.
Adding to that is the potential of spin-offs from Daredevil: Born Again. Jessica Jones' return in Season 2 is already raising the possibility of Ritter's character receiving her own show, which would begin to revive the interconnected TV universe that existed on Netflix for so many years.
Both Daredevil and Jessica Jones lasted for three seasons on Netflix, and if a Jessica Jones revival is as popular as Daredevil: Born Again has been, it's easy to see how it could run for just as many seasons, if not more, when Marvel Studios eventually brings it back.
Another of the MCU's few live-action serials is WandaVision, which began a series of interconnected shows that includes Agatha All Along and the upcoming VisionQuest. While the successor shows aren't labeled as additional "seasons" of WandaVision, they are considered a trilogy of shows in the same family, connected by the same characters and story threads that began in Marvel's first 2021 Disney+ show.
This technically makes VisionQuest something of a third season, thanks to its place in this trilogy. Depending on how things end up in the 2026 show, it could be the beginning of much more in the Marvel TV space.
VisionQuest will follow Paul Bettany's White Vision as he searches for his memories and meaning, which will also include the return of his adult son, Tommy Maximoff. The ending of Agatha All Along also set up that Billy Maximoff planned to search for his long-lost brother, so the endpoint of VisionQuest has the potential to set up another crossover show where these threads meet.
On the animation side, X-Men '97 isn't the only show with legs for at least four seasons. Marvel Studios also quickly moved to renew Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man for Seasons 2 and 3. The parallel-universe story for Peter Parker gives the MCU hero the origin tale fans never saw, revealing his high school years and early days as Spider-Man.
The Disney+ show's placement in an alternate timeline also gives Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man plenty of freedom to explore classic Spider-Man villains and other Marvel heroes that the live-action films cannot, and that alone screams potential for more than three seasons, potentially following X-Men '97 into fourth and fifth seasons.
Another unconfirmed Marvel show on Disney+ with huge potential is the rumored X Academy series, which Jeff Sneider hinted is currently in development. X-Men '97 has already proven that the mutants are a huge drawcard for Marvel Studios, particularly as the MCU finally goes all-in on the X-Men after regaining the rights from Fox.
X Academy is only a rumor right now, but a potential high school-set show starring the young mutants of Professor X's Academy for Gifted Youngsters could be the perfect complementary show to release in tandem with Marvel's big-screen X-Men reboot. The show could focus on introducing lesser-known mutant heroes, like Armor, Elixir, Dust, and Prodigy.
Marvel Studios hasn't had a recurring young adult series since Runaways and Cloak and Dagger were cancelled, so a young mutants series could fill that gap and would have the potential to be an annual series for Marvel TV.
