Marvel has a whole bunch of new TV/streaming projects in the works these days. When you lay it out, Disney+ has a new episode coming out every week for the next year, or so it seems. With WandaVision already running, Falcon and The Winter Soldier starting next month, and What If… and Loki coming later this summer, we have plenty of marvelous Marvel stories coming. And more is on the way! Hawkeye is already filming and Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk are all in some level of pre-production.
At one time, the only place to visit the MCU was at your local cineplex. Then, in 2013, Marvel’s television division, at the time run by Jeph Loeb, made a deal with streaming giant Netflix. Netflix would produce and stream four series based on some of Marvel’s more “street-level” characters, that were not being used in the movies. They came up with a plan to have them interconnected, with some characters crossing over between them, before leading up to an event series bringing them together as a team… sound familiar? Hey, it worked for the Avengers. Netflix ended up making 5 series, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher. Plus they made The Defenders, an 8-episode event mini-series.
Then Disney announced their own streaming service. That’s when Netflix decided to pull the plug on the deal. After producing 3 seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones and 2 of the other series on their service, Netflix closed up their Marvel shop. But their deal with Marvel and Disney gave them exclusivity to the characters for 2 more years from when each series was cancelled. Now, in 2021, all of the characters’ rights have reverted back to Marvel and fans are wondering when will we see these characters back in the MCU.
The answer is… eventually, probably. Kevin Feige, who runs Marvel Studios (which absorbed Marvel Television back in 2019), spoke this week at Disney’s virtual TCA (Television Critics Association) event. There, he was asked about the return of the Defenders and had this to say:
“I think we probably could do it, I think a lot of that stuff comes back to us. There’s always rumors online about things reverting, sometimes that’s true, sometimes it’s not, but I’m not exactly sure of the exact contracts but perhaps someday.”
So, what does that mean? Well, that sort of non-committal response may seem disheartening to fans of the Netflix series. But it does seem to give Marvel a lot of leeway with the characters. Rumors of Charlie Cox showing up somewhere in the MCU have been whispered pretty much the moment Daredevil’s rights reverted. The same is true for other characters. The thing is, the Netflix series ran a bit more to the gritty side than the general MCU. Many episodes earned a TV-MA rating and would have probably been R-rated if they were films. (Looking at you Punisher.) So any re-integration with the greater MCU would probably come with a bit of toning down. More quipping, less blowing holes through people.
That is not to say that some of the stuff Disney has coming won’t be more maturely portrayed. Deadpool 3 would be a hard sell to his fans if he was toned down to fit the MCU. Moon Knight is also a character with a dark history, so who’s to say.
