We're only a few weeks into the new year and we've already had some great TV shows. But if you take a look over the next few months, there's plenty to get excited about. These are the shows scheduled to come out in 2024 that you might want to make sure you have on your calendar.
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender
It's not a controversial statement to say that Avatar: The Last Airbender may be one of the best animated series of all time. It's also not a controversial statement to say that the live-action movie based on the series is not only one of the worst examples of adaptation ever made but stands as one of the worst movies of all time. So, when it was announced that Netflix is taking another crack at making a live-action version of the beloved animated show, people were understandably nervous.
Still, as images and some footage have started to be released, it's looking like the show may have figured out some of the magic that made the original series work so well. Netflix proved this year with One Piece that they are capable of taking an animated story, and figuring out how to adapt it for live-action in a way that works. So while Avatar fans may still be understandably nervous, they might be cautiously optimistic about this one.
2. Fallout
2023 was the year that the video game adaptation became successful, thanks in no small part to the critical and commercial success of The Last of Us on HBO. With the second season of The Last of Us not set to come out until 2025, Amazon is hoping to have the big video game smash this year with Fallout.
Based on the video game series of the same name, the show is set in a wasteland after a nuclear apocalypse. The characters are forced to leave their fallout shelters and navigate the dangerous world beyond, full of lawless characters and creatures created from nuclear radiation. The series is not adapting one of the games from the Fallout franchise but is instead taking place in the same universe as the games, but telling an entirely new story.
3. Alien
The Alien franchise had two pretty much perfect installments with Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). After that, it was a series of projects trying to recapture what made those first two movies work so well. There have been a half dozen additional movies and plenty of other projects that never got off the ground of people trying to make another Alien story that worked as well as the first two. More than a few of those failed projects have been attempts to bring the franchise to television, but up until now, all of them have failed.
It seems like this time, we might actually be getting the promised TV series set in the Alien universe. The series is set to be a prequel taking place several years before the events of the first movie and is being written and directed by Noah Hawley, who has had several TV hits in his career already, he's best known for creating the Fargo anthology series, and knows what works in the television format,
4. The Penguin
While there was all kinds of praise heaped upon The Batman movie that was released in 2022, plenty of it centered on the character of The Penguin played by Colin Farrell. While the character wasn't the primary antagonist of the movie, he created a memorable performance that was one of the best parts of the movie. Farrell is not taking that supporting role, and expanding it, taking center stage in a new miniseries set to air later this year.
Taking place after the events of the movie, The Penguin will center around Oswald Cobblepot, the gangster whose appearance has given him the nickname Penguin. Thanks to what happened in the movie The Batman, there is a bit of a power vacuum in Gotham's criminal underworld, and Cobblepot sees an opportunity to take over and become the most powerful crime boss in the city. No word yet on how many if any references to Batman himself there will be, but we'll find out when The Penguin airs at some point this fall.
5. Knuckles
Don't let the fact that The Super Mario Bros. Movie made a billion dollars make you forget that the Sonic movies were some of the first wildly successful video game adaptations in this era of video game adaptations that people actually like. The two movies that have already been released have done well enough to not only guarantee a third movie, but a spinoff TV series as well.
The spinoff series will focus on the character of Knuckles, a tough, hot-headed, Echidna warrior who has sworn to protect the Master Emerald, a task that has made him both an ally and a foe to Sonic at different points. Idris Elba is expected to reprise the role of Knuckles that he had in the second film, and the series is expected to take place between the second movie and the third one which is expected to be released in December of this year.
6. Dune: Prophecy
2024 is already going to be a big year for Dune, as the second movie is finally released in March. But if you want even more of the Dune universe, there's a series coming out that will delve into some of the further expansion of the story. The series is serving as a prequel to the film series and is set ten thousand years before the events of the Dune films.
The series is expected to focus on the origin of the Bene Gesserit, the sisterhood that we get very little information about but holds a mysterious power in the events of the movie. There are, of course, dozens of books of lore to draw from when it comes to Dune, so there is plenty of material to adapt when exploring this particular era of the series.
7. Star Wars: The Acolyte and 8. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
This might be a bit of a cheat since there are two different Star Wars series scheduled to come out this year, but while they look like they're going to be drastically different, they both automatically get a certain amount of hype by virtue of the fact that they're Star Wars.
The first series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is set in the era between the original and sequel trilogy, at the same time as other Star Wars shows such as The Mandalorian and Ahsoka. The series is being described as The Goonies set in Star Wars, as it features a cast of kids who are whisked away on an adventure. So far, all the characters we know of are original characters who have never appeared in Star Wars before.
The other Star Wars show, Star Wars: The Acolyte takes place in the High Republic era, set about a hundred years before the events of Episode I. While there have been plenty of books and comics that take place in this era, and one animated series, this will be the first time that The High Republic era is featured in live-action Star Wars.
9-12. Marvel Animated series
This one is another cheat to get three more shows on the list, but it's a trend that seems interesting for the future of MCU shows on Disney+. While Echo has already been released, and Agatha from WandaVision is supposed to get her own show at some point this year, there are also three other new shows that are expected to be released in 2024. These three new shows are all animated series, something that has been a longstanding thing for Marvel since the 1960s, but only one animated show has been released in the MCU so far.
This year, we're expecting to get Eyes of Wakanda, a series that tells the history of the Wakandan warriors, You're Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, a prequel series that follows the MCU version of Spider-Man through freshman year, and Marvel Zombies. The third show is an expansion of an episode of What If..., where a zombie virus took over the Marvel universe, something that had been previously explored in a comic series of the same name.
All three shows sound drastically different from one another, but they each feature a chance to really explore what can be done in animation for these characters. Some of the best superhero stories ever have been told in animation so it's exciting to see the MCU dive deeper into the format to see what they might come up with.
13. Magic: The Gathering
Of all the series that are on this list, it's the one that we know the least about, so if anything ends up getting bumped to 2025 (or disappearing completely), it's most likely going to be this one. Still, the fact that a Magic TV show is in the works at all right now is interesting enough to earn a spot on the list. Most people who are aware of Magic: The Gathering, know it as a card game.
You'll usually see Magic cards being sold alongside other trading card games such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, however, unlike those other games, Magic: The Gathering isn't based on any pre-existing franchise, but in fact was originally created as a trading card game. Magic: The Gathering technically has a plot as the players take on the roles of Plainwalkers, powerful beings who can travel to different planes of the Multiverse and can cast spells and summon creatures to fight for them.
While it's not critical to know the plot in order to be able to play Magic: The Gathering, the story has been fleshed out over dozens of novels over the years. So to see the story get more attention through a possible series is exciting especially when there have been so many different planes and cards introduced over the years, it's nearly impossible to guess what direction the series will be taking. All we know so far is that Brandon Routh is expected to voice the character Gideon Jura a powerful Planeswalker who first appeared in 2010 in the Rise of the Eldrazi set.