Agents of SHIELD question real world perspective. Spoilers

[balls]

I apologize if this has been asked in other threads, but when this show was conceived, Captain America 2 was already in production (I assume). So, was the story idea of Ward/Hydra/SHIELD set up from before the premiere of the series?
It seems like Marvel is pretty careful about everything in their cinematic universe. If that's the case they did a decent job of keeping Ward's intentions under wraps for the majority of the season. Has there been anything written on this subject?

I'm curious as to whatever pitch meeting they had with ABC. "It's about the other players of SHIELD that investigate all of the day to day craziness. At least for season 1. Season 2 we destroy SHIELD and they're fugatives..."

thanks

 

[Christopher]

From what I've read, the producers of the show were told pretty much from the start what was planned for Cap 2. I'm not sure if that was known to the network when they bought the show, though.

 

[Morpheus 02]

What was known to ABC execs was that the Marvel studio movies have been making literally billions of dollars, and this show would be a reasonably-cost addition to that universe, with a star from those movies that people would recognize, and the show could afford. With an occasional Samuel L Jackson appearance.

'Nuff said.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The pilot was ordered and they started developing in the show. Then they were told what would happen in The Winter Soldier and decided to plan their show around what would happen there. So, technically, it was probably sold to ABC as a Marvel-universe show about the day-to-day activities of SHIELD starring Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson (and that's probably all they knew at the time).

However, before the show started filming, they had planned out what would happen after everything went to shit in TWS. They rightly realized they had to carefully set up the day-to-day stuff before destroying it all down (so the goal was to focus on things like code words like 0-8-4, facilities like The Hub and The Fridge, rules about clearance levels, etc.). Then they had to pace the show so the final act, so to speak, would air after The Winter Soldier.