'Nova' Series Confirmed In Development At Marvel

Marvel

Sep 7

In March 2022, Marvel Studios announced they had greenlit a project to bring Nova into the MCU. By this time, it was unknown if the cosmic hero would receive a cinematic feature, a one-shot special presentation on Disney+, or a whole TV show.

There has not been much news about this project since then, and with Bob Iger's guideline to prioritizing quality over quantity and Marvel Studio's change in the way they approach new projects, there was a danger that Nova could fall from the roster. After all, there had been initial plans to include him in Avengers: Infinity War and many fans had hoped that James Gunn would feature Nova in the Guardians of the Galaxy films, but neither came to fruition.

Then, in July 2024, Kevin Feige confirmed that the project was still in development and would be released as a TV show for Disney+.

Now, Brad Winderbaum, the Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation at Marvel Studios, shared some more insights into the state of the Nova project in a recent interview:

"So Nova's in development right now. We are. But I will say we're developing more than we make. This is part of the new Marvel. But we should talk about this because at Marvel everything has a spotlight on it and everyone gets super excited and we love Nova. And we want to get it right. But it's in development. We got a few things in development and we're not going to go on a show until we are happy with a pilot. Happy with the bible."

RELATED:

Featured

Retrospective Look At 'X-Men: The Animated Series'

Created in 1966 by writer Marv Wolfman, Nova was an alien, but his appearance and origin story changed several times during these early years.

The current iteration of Nova is a human named Richard Rider. A humble teenager like Peter Parker Rider received superhuman speed, agility, and fighting powers in the form of the so-called Nova Force when he joined the Nova Corps. Rider was part of the Secret Avengers and worked with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

There is a second well-known iteration of Nova, created in 2011, where the alias is now used by another teenager called Sam Alexander.

With the Multiverse, there is a chance that the Nova TV show could feature both the Rider and the Alexander characters. But according to Kevin Feige, it looks like the main Focus will be the Alexander iteration: "It's happening, it's coming together. Richard Rider, yep."

Also, according to Feige, the release of the show is still "...three or four years out", so it will likely debut after Avengers: Secret Wars, when the Multiverse Saga is done, and the MCU could split into several branches, focusing on earth-bound heroes like Daredevil, supernatural aspects like Agatha Harkness and stories taking place in outer space, which is were Nova would fit in perfectly.

READ NEXT

Featured