Summary
- The Defenders was Netflix’s Marvel team up, but much of that potental has been squandered.
- The messy transition from Netflix to Disney led to confusion over rights.
- Recent appearances from Netflix-era characters in MCU films and shows is repairing the bridge.
The MCU’s television saga has been extremely up and down. Though Disney Plus started strong with WandaVision and the currently airing Daredevil: Born Again represents one of the peaks of the universe’s adventure on the small screen, recent years have also seen almighty troughs, most notably with Secret Invasion.
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One factor that has marred Marvel’s television aspiriatons was the messy transition from Netflix to Disney, leading to truncated arcs, major characters being sidelined, and a lot of confusion over rights. Things were so combatative that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos recently described working with Marvel as “a fistfight”.
“Whatever [Marvel] Didn’t Spend, They Kept”
Between 2015 and 2019, the ‘main’ Marvel shows were all on Netflix. While ABC had Agents of Shield, Agent Carter, and Inhumans during that time, and various animated shows still existed across a variety of platforms, the series on Netflix were considered A-tier for Marvel. These were Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, who all teamed up for The Defenders, as well as The Punisher. Though these moved across to Disney Plus when Netflix’s deal ran out, they were seen as more separate from the main canon as ever.
Things have changed in recent years though. Starting with Matt Murdoch’s appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home and then in She-Hulk, plus Wilson Fisk in Hawkeye and Echo, the universes have been more integrated. Though its unlikely The Defenders as a whole will fully merge with the MCU, Daredevil (and now Daredevil: Born Again) has made the jump. Across Phases Five and Six – we’re currently in Five – there are no plans for the other Defenders to get their own Disney series, though Daredevil: Born Again will have a second season in the current Phase Six roadmap.
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While fans can take solace from Daredevil’s long-awaited continuation, Sarandos did not pull his punches when discussing the previous arrangement with Marvel in an interview with Variety. “On our shows, we were dealing with the old Marvel television regime, which operated independently at Disney. And they were thrifty,” he said. “We wanted to make great television; they wanted to make money. I thought we could make money with great television.”
Getting money for what he calls “the biggest deal in the history of television” was not easy, he claimed. “As producers, whatever [Marvel] didn’t spend, they kept. So every time we wanted to add something to the show to make it better, it was a fistfight.”
