Marvel Studios Unveils ‘Echo’ at Choctaw Day Celebration

The episodes were presented by director Sydney Freeland, who was joined by Seth Fairchild, Executive Director of Cultural Services for Choctaw Nation, for a Q&A conversation after the screening.

Today in Durant, Oklahoma, Marvel Studios screened the first two episodes of the upcoming series Echo during Choctaw Nation’s annual Powwow.

The episodes were presented by director Sydney Freeland, who was joined by Seth Fairchild, Executive Director of Cultural Services for Choctaw Nation, for a Q&A conversation after the screening.

“It’s so exciting to be able to premiere Echo and it is extremely meaningful to myself to have this screening in Choctaw Nation,” said Freeland. “One of the things we’re most excited about is being able to portray the Choctaw culture hopefully in an authentic and exciting way.”

It was in some ways a reunion for the filmmakers. The series lead, Maya Lopez, is Choctaw and the show highlights Choctaw culture, legends and history throughout the five episodes. During production and postproduction, the Echo filmmakers worked closely with both Choctaw Nation and advisers from the woman-led Native organization IllumiNative.

The audience members in Oklahoma were also the first to see the new Marvel Spotlight banner, with a musical fanfare composed by frequent Marvel collaborator Michael Giacchino. Marvel Spotlight is rooted in Marvel Comics’ 85-year publishing history: Spotlight was an anthology comic book series first introduced in 1971 and was the origin of beloved Marvel characters like Ghost Rider and Spider-Woman.

Marvel Spotlight

Echo will be the first series under the Marvel Spotlight banner, and Head of Streaming Brad Winderbaum said of the decision to launch the new banner with Echo, “Marvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn’t need to read Avengers or Fantastic Four to enjoy a Ghost Rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn’t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what’s happening in Maya’s story.”