Marvel Sets Vision Series for 2026 With Paul Bettany, ‘Star Trek: Picard’ EP Terry Matalas as Showrunner (EXCLUSIVE)

Adam B. Vary and Joe Otterson

22 May 2024 at 0:15 pm·3-min read

Marvel has tapped “Star Trek: Picard” executive producer Terry Matalas to resurrect Vision, the synthezoid played by Paul Bettany, for a new, untitled Disney+ series set for 2026, Variety has learned exclusively. Bettany will return to the role and Matalas will serve as showrunner.

After Vision died at the hands of Thanos in 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” he returned twice over in 2021’s “WandaVision,” first as a spectral creation by his beloved, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), through magic powered by grief; then as a rebuilt, nuts-and-bolts android with a ghost white appearance and zero memory of his past life. When the two Visions battled in the “WandaVision” finale, Wanda’s Vision restored the ghost Vision’s memories, then Wanda allowed her Vision to fade from existence. The new show will take place after those events, as ghost Vision presumably explores his new purpose in life.

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Marvel brought in Matalas after his work running Season 3 of “Star Trek: Picard” — which brought back the cast of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” to widespread acclaim, garnering Matalas a WGA award nomination for the 2023 series finale — greatly impressed the top brass at the studio. (Marvel chief Kevin Feige, an avowed Trekkie, even recently appeared with Matalas on a two-hour episode of the “Star Trek” podcast “Inglorious Treksperts.”)

An earlier version of a Vision series had been in development with “WandaVision” creator Jac Schaefer, but Schaefer’s attention turned to running a separate “WandaVision” spinoff, “Agatha All Along” with Kathryn Hahn, that is set to premiere in September.

With Matalas coming on board, this will be Marvel’s first new live-action series pickup in almost two years, representing a significant shift in how the company produces television for Disney+. Originally, Marvel adopted a features model, hiring head writers to create predetermined (and, often, already announced) shows, but assigning most leadership responsibilities to the directors and creative executives. Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation Brad Winderbaum recently told Variety that, starting in 2022, the company began to shift to a more “traditional approach” to TV, with a lengthier development period and a return to hiring writer-producers to oversee the entire production as showrunners. The company is also rebranding its live-action TV output to Marvel Television and reducing the number of shows it makes to roughly two per year, down from as many as four.

Before “Picard,” Matalas was the creator and showrunner for the Syfy series “12 Monkeys” for Universal Cable Productions, which ran for three seasons. He also was the executive producer and showrunner of Season 4 of the CBS reboot of “MacGyver” and he’s written for “Nightflyers,” “Nikita,” “Terra Nova,” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.” He’s also restored multiple “Back to the Future” DeLoreans, which have appeared on “Jay Leno’s Garage,” Super Bowl commercials and the Academy Awards.

Matalas is represented by CAA and Anonymous Content.

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