Last year, we learned that Marvel Studios had shelved TV shows revolving around Nova, Strange Academy, and Terror, Inc. The biggest shocker was Richard Rider's long-awaited MCU debut being put on "pause," especially as he was finally on the cusp of getting his due in live-action.
Marvel Studios has reportedly decided to pivot away from making movie-adjacent series, choosing instead to focus on multi-season shows like Daredevil: Born Again and Wonder Man.
It seems the hope is that by keeping Avengers-level characters in theaters, moviegoers will be more inclined to buy tickets to see them (Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* were both negatively affected by featuring characters who had led streaming shows).
Now, Nova is once again picking up speed. Sabir Pirzada (Ms. Marvel) was originally tapped as showrunner, with Ed Bernero (Criminal Minds) later taking over. It seems things have changed again, as Michael Waldron's official WGA page confirms he's penning a Nova TV series for Marvel Television.
Waldron is one of the Rick and Morty writers Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige gravitated towards during the Multiverse Saga. He tapped several creatives from the Adult Swim series to take charge of projects such as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, albeit with mixed results.
In Waldron's case, he was Head Writer on Loki Season 1 and later penned Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. From there, he was tasked with working on Avengers: Secret Wars and later took over writing duties on Avengers: The Kang Dynasty from Jeff Loveness after the Ant-Man threequel bombed. He's since contributed to the Avengers: Doomsday screenplay.
Putting him in charge of Nova suggests Feige has plenty of faith in Waldron, though we've known that for a while, seeing as he tapped the Loki scribe to work on his unmade Star Wars movie. Hopefully, this means we're getting an official Nova announcement at Comic-Con this month.
It was previously reported that Nova will revolve around Rider rebuilding the Nova Corps after Thanos' attack on Xandar. However, it's then that Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave invade. Glenn Close and John C. Reilly were being eyed to return as their Guardians of the Galaxy characters, while Sam Alexander was also expected to appear.
How much of that will make it into Waldron's version remains to be seen. We have, however, heard recently that the idea is for Nova to lead a team of intergalactic heroes in the series.
Stay tuned for updates on Nova as we have them.