At the Television Critics Association press event ABC President Paul Lee took note of the addition of Marvel to the Disney family of companies and the opportunities that the acquisition of “the house of ideas” had for his network: “We’re extremely excited by having Marvel in the fold.  We’ve been developing aggressively both AKA Jessica Jones (an adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis’ Alias comic book series, see “TV Show Based on Bendis’ Alias”) and The Hulk.  Hopefully we will have two very good choices to look at around the pilot season next time.”

 

The Hulk series is being produced by Guillermo Del Toro and Battlestar Galactica producer David Eick (see “Eick and Del Toro on Hulk”).  While it is great news that AKA Jessica Jones and The Hulk have reached the pilot phase, the fate of the recently-produced Wonder Woman and Locke & Key pilots demonstrates that getting a pilot made is not a guarantee of getting a show on the air.

 

The failure of the networks to pick up Wonder Woman and Locke & Key along with the end of the long-running Smallville series and the cancellation of The Human Target means that for the first time in over ten years there are no live action comic book-based live-action series on American network television.

 

When quizzed by IGN about how the Marvel series would fit in to ABC’s focus on female-centric series, Lee replied: “We do family entertainment, I believe, more naturally than the other networks. We have more co-viewing shows (for the entire family) than any other network…Family entertainment, Hulk is a classic example of it.”