What made Marvel Change Release Strategy for Loki Season 2?
Loki Season 2 is set to release with a major departure from Marvel Studios’ familiar release strategy for Disney+.
Disney+ launched in 2019 with new chapters of all its major shows – including The Mandalorian, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – debuting on Fridays.
That trend was abandoned in June 2021 when Loki moved its weekly releases to Wednesdays, and that schedule has largely held ever since.
Marvel Changes Release Strategy for Loki Season 2
During Disney’s 2023 Upfront event, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed Loki Season 2 will premiere on October 6, which curiously signals a major departure from the MCU’s previous Disney+ release strategy.
Strangely enough, this release date has the Tom Hiddleston-led season premiering its first episode on a Friday, despite the fact Disney+ traditionally debuts new episodes of its Marvel, Star Wars, and other original series on Wednesdays.
Perhaps the only exception to this rule came with Obi-Wan Kenobi, which debuted a two-episode premiere on Friday, May 27, seemingly in an effort to take advantage of the 2022 Memorial Day holiday weekend.
In a similar fashion, Loki Season 2’s premiere date of Friday, October 6 falls on the Columbus Day holiday weekend, indicating the shift was made in the hopes of capitalizing on the masses being off work and at home watching TV.
If Loki follows the pattern set by Obi-Wan Kenobi, the show will return to Wednesday releases after the premiere for the remainder of the season, placing Episode 2 on Wednesday, October 11.
Marvel Studios already announced that its next show after Loki Season 2, Echo, will debut its entire six-episode season in historic fashion on Wednesday, November 29, suggesting the shift to a Friday premiere will be a one-off.
The plan to return to Wednesdays is particularly apparent given a Friday release day all through the season would place the sixth and final episode on November 10, the same day The Marvels hits theaters, and it’s unlikely Marvel Studios would want to risk either drawing attention from the other.
Why Is Loki Season 2 Premiering on a Friday?
At a rate of one episode per week, Loki ought to conclude its six-episode run with an epic finale on November 8, assuming it hops back to Wednesdays. Although this would leave a comfortable three-week window ahead of the November 29 premiere of Echo, it also places the finale just two days apart from The Marvels.
With Loki Season 2 tying heavily to Jonathan Majors’ Kang and the set-up for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, its conclusion is sure to be an epic and important one that will draw plenty of discussions. So would Marvel Studios want to place that just two days before attention turns to Captain Marvel 2?
When Obi-Wan Kenobi made its move to the Memorial Day holiday weekend, it also switched up its format to a two-episode premiere. Perhaps Marvel Studios could do something similar with Loki Season 2 to give viewers more content to watch on that holiday and also distance the finale from The Marvels by a week.
A two-episode premiere wouldn’t be out of character for the MCU, as the studio previously dropped two episodes of both WandaVision and Hawkeye on their respective debut days. However, those announcements of double installment premieres came close to release, so fans shouldn’t expect any news on the matter until around September if it was to happen at all.
Loki Season 2 will premiere on Friday, October 6.
