I love how the fans have really embraced the Marvel Cinematic Universe and follow and believe in it wholeheartedly. It’s given us the confidence to go even deeper with it, and to say, “Oh wow, everyone really appreciates people having emotions in a blockbuster. Who knew?” — Tom Hiddleston ( x )
I seriously hope that Disney knows straight, white, cisgender males are not their audience for the Loki show. Women, queer people, mentally ill people, etc. are the audience who respond to and identify with Loki. They’re not going to please all of us, but if they don’t appeal to us, the show will fail. It will. The audience they usually appeal to hates Loki.
The fact that they’re launching with Loki gives me hope that they do in fact understand their target demographic.
Like, they know who’s lining up at the cons to see Tom and to see Loki at Disneyland. They know about Hall H. They know who’s buying ALL the merch. They know that Tom’s fan base will hype the fuck out of the announcement. If nothing else, huge companies with lots of money on the line tend to spend a ton on market research— which in my experience will generally confirm who is already buying their product, and thus encourage them to continue catering to that already-established audience.
I’m not saying they’ll get it perfect or that they will fully understand what so many people love about Loki— but I’ll eat my shirt if they don’t know who they’re marketing to by now. This is also why I hope Tom has a creator/co-producer credit… because he knows firsthand exactly what people love about Loki.
Tbh, the fact that Tom so recently brought up Loki’s sexuality and spoke on it at some length without being asked— and what’s more, took complete ownership of that statement (instead of saying essentially “sure, he’s whatever you want him to be” as he has in the past) all while speaking to an audience that he knew was primed and thirsty for tv show news, and where he completely understood the impact of that statement…
I also noted that Tom seemed more comfortable and confident speaking on Loki’s sexuality/gender than he has in the past, which leads me to believe he’s been thinking about that aspect of Loki with more purpose. I imagine he’s aready well into the process of revisiting Loki’s character with the series in mind…
Like, I’m not gonna get too excited, because it could have just been happenstance— but it strikes me as odd to draw so much attention to it during a panel if he didn’t think there was a chance it’d become relevant to his version of the character. Tom knows how to tease, but I think he also tends to try and comfort his audience without giving too much away (Loki thrives on chaos, everything is fine, etc) and I’m hoping that’s one of those cases of his subtle foreshadowing.
Also, this gives me cause to think my theory re: this series taking place in an alternate timeline (potentially pulling some ideas from AOA/the more recent Thor runs) might be not so far off the mark? If certain spoilers about A4 are to be believed…
My other running theory (which may or may not be mutually exclusive, tbh!) is that this series — or the general idea of it— has been in the works for several years and was meant to fill in the gaps left by the MCU regarding Loki’s time being dead/‘dead’ during Infinity War and the years following…
I mean, Tom knew about his death in IW for like 2+ years prior (before or early on in Ragnarok’s production, right? Someone fact check me.) So many of the other actors didn’t find out until the day of, or close to. Why make Tom have to keep that secret for so long unless Marvel was already trying to get him onboard for a series on a new platform under development? It would explain basically everything about his cryptic comments since the beginning of the IW hype.
And I absolutely believe Marvel would intentionally fuck with Loki’s fans and enrage them with his confusing and bizarre IW death, all with this endgame in mind. Granted, I had originally assumed they were working up to some strange reveal in A4, but this might well be in lieu of that… aka Marvel realizing that there’s so much interest in Loki but not enough time to tell his story on screen. (Same with Sam+Bucky, Wanda, etc.) They are too smart to pass up on that money and they love generating buzz and controversy…
Anyway, I’m just not gonna be surprised if this was the plan all along even before/early on in Ragnarok production. These things don’t happen overnight. Now here’s hoping it’s actually decent and that, say, Tom has a producer credit… 😉
Also seriously who the Fuck is gonna be writing /directing this??!?!?
I'm a defeatist but I don't have to be 