User blog:ARTaylor/Hulu Cancels Half the Upcoming Series

Hulu has pulled the plug on the upcoming Marvel animated shows Howard the Duck and Tigra & Dazzler. Writer and executive producer Kevin Smith told the site Newsarama that the writing staff of Howard the Duck had been notified on January 22nd that development on the series had been stopped.

"I got a text from [fellow executive producer] Dave Willis in the morning saying, 'We got Tigra and Dazzler ' d.' I called him and asked 'Is that what I think that means?' And Dave said he had just got the word that there will be no Howard the Duck show. The only explanation was 'We have no plans for this character at this time,'."

Back in December, it had been announced that the entire writing staff of Tigra & Dazzler had been fired, but at the time there was the intentions that they would be replaced and the show would go on. Newsarama was able to confirm that the show had been cancelled completely.

The two shows were supposed to tie into fellow Hulu series M.O.D.O.K. and Hit Monkey until they crossed over into The Offenders.

Smith said of the show's cancellation, "We had a lot of great writers who put in a lot of really hard work and came up with some inventive scripts, but we all got paid, so no one's complaining. But we were all there to do the show, so that's a bit of a bummer."

Smith also said he saw this coming with Kevin Feige taking over Marvel Television. Though he did say, "As a fan of the Marvel Universe, I like Kevin being in charge of things in the sense of everything: comics, TV and movies. It makes sense to have it under one guy, especially the one guy who's brought Marvel the most success in recent years."

Smith then commented on the upcoming series What If...?, "Look, by the time What If...? airs on Disney+, this will be a distant memory. People will be like, 'Look! It's Uatu! He's telling his stories!' So as someone who was working on the show, it's a bummer. But as someone who's a fan of Kevin Feige, I'm like, 'Kevin, whatever you say.' He's the most important Kevin in the universe, the Kevin who must be spared above all others. Even my mother agrees. I'm not offended in the least."

Marvel recently announced a voice cast for M.O.D.O.K. indicating that at least that show will continue. There has been no word on the current development of Hit Monkey. It is unknown what the cancellation of these two shows means for The Offenders since the three characters in these shows since they were the majority of the team.