Marvellous Ideas

The brief.

Six teams. Each pulls one hero and one villain out of a basket: lesser-known Marvel characters, with the odd famous face. You have ten minutes to turn them into the pilot episode of a brand-new series.

What your pilot needs.

1. A hero with a unique superpower.
2. An antagonist with a unique superpower.
3. A twist, or a hook nobody sees coming.
4. An ending.

This is a work in progress.

It's not meant to be perfect, because nothing really is. Embrace your opportunity to fail.

The pitch.

Ninety seconds, two presenters. One rule: don't tell us about the story. Tell the story! The room is the focus group, and we're the executive producer.

The verdict.

Every team rates every other pitch, from a viewer's point of view. Not on a polite scale: each team hands out points, up to 50 each for novelty (is it new?), desirability (would fans, and everyone else, want it?) and feasibility (could it actually be made?). That makes it hard to just be nice, and hard to sink a rival.

Pitches we've heard.

• Pilot episode 01

  Moondragon needs a potion to power her head laser. A princess wants it too. The race is on, and the potion is in a nightclub.

• Pilot episode 02

  Squirrel Girl's gang clashes with Scarlet Witch's. Neither can bring themselves to kill the other. Scarlet Witch ends up as the mother Squirrel Girl never had.

• Pilot episode 03

  Loki and Mystique both died in the original universe. Now they're back, both switching sides, both living in someone else's shadow. Then they realise they're both gods.

• Pilot episode 04

  One team was handed two villains by mistake. They pitched anyway.

What the facilitators said.

"'The potion is in the nightclub' is what really had me on the edge of my seat!"Session lead

"People really enjoyed the activity and saw the link to the case."Co-facilitator

"Some great ones came up, especially with villain and villain mix-ups."Co-facilitator, on the pitches

Behind it: the Marvel Method.

Stan Lee didn't hand his artists a full script. He gave them a one-page plot outline and let them bring it to life. That's the deal here too: a short brief, a lot of freedom, and a deadline.

The debrief.

We take the pitches apart with strategy tools: where was the crowded market, and what did you eliminate, reduce, raise or create to get out of it?

What it trains.

Creative problem solving under time pressure, building on each other's ideas, and pitching a bold idea with confidence.

Inspired by Marvel's characters; not affiliated with Marvel.

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