Marvel TV boss Brad Winderbaum has addressed the Defenders-shaped elephant in the room – and given a positive, if cryptic, update on whether the likes of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage will be involved in the MCU after Daredevil: Born Again.
“I can’t say much, but I’ll tell you that it’s so exciting to be able to play in that sandbox,” Winderbaum told Entertainment Weekly of the potential arrival of the stable of heroes known as The Defenders – Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones – who made their names over at Netflix.
For Winderbaum, who heads up streaming, television, and animation at Marvel Studios, there has to be a degree of cold, hard realism when it comes to getting any Defenders involved, however.
“Obviously, we don’t have the unlimited storytelling resources like a comic book, [where] if you can draw it, you can do it,” Winderbaum admits.
“We’re dealing with actors and time and the massive scale of production in order to build a cinematic universe, especially on television. But I can just say that all those variables taken into account, it is certainly something that is creatively extremely exciting and that we are very much exploring.”
The street-level heroes made a splash over at Netflix, operating in the same New York space as each other. Daredevil and Jessica Jones ran for three seasons, while Luke Cage and Iron Fist stuck around for two standalone seasons of their own. A crossover miniseries, The Defenders, aired in 2017, but (aside from Daredevil) their status in the MCU remains unresolved.
Speaking of The Man Without Fear, Daredevil: Born Again, starring Charlie Cox as the mask-wearing vigilante once more, is hitting Disney Plus on March 4.
Acting as a continuation of the Netflix series, the show also brings back cast members Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Bernthal, Deborah Ann Woll, and Elden Henson. It even teased some sort of connection to The Defenders (which were largely kept apart from MCU canon) with a Luke Cage Easter egg in a recent trailer. Here’s hoping that’s only the beginning.
For more, check out our guide to upcoming Marvel movies and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.