ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee surprised attendees of the network’s Television Critics Association (TCA) presentation yesterday with the news that a Marvel character would be appearing in a storyline of the series Castle. The series stars fan favorite Nathan Filion as a mystery writer/crime sleuth.
“You know, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it, but we’ve got a really cool storyline with a Marvel character that appears on Castle this year,” Lee said. “If you guys haven’t seen the finale for Castle from this past season, it’s extraordinary. [Castle creator] Andrew Marlow is really hitting his stride. And that was an underrated show that really found its momentum. And there’s one episode, and I’m probably giving away a secret and I shouldn’t because Andrew is going to kill me, with a Marvel superhero character.”
ABC is owned by Disney, which also owns Marvel. Since most of Marvel’s movie rights are tied up with other studios, it’s natural that Disney would be anxious to exploit the characters via television.
Lee confirmed that network is still developing a Hulk series executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy) and David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) as well as AKA Jessica Jones, based on the Alias book by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos, with Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg as exec producer.
Our guess is that Jones is the likely Castle crossover candidate. Introducing new spin-off characters in popular long-running series is a staple of genre television (anyone remember the Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man crossovers?). But it would be great to see Bruce Banner or another A-list character appear in the “real” world. How about Dr. Strange?