What’s that wail you hear in the early morning breeze? That’s the collective cries of disappointment of the genre community as Netflix has cancelled Marvel’s Daredevil after three seasons.
Via Deadline, this news has now been confirmed by both Netflix and Marvel. This comes hot on the heels of Marvel’s Luke Cage and Marvel’s Iron Fist being canned after two seasons apiece. But still, many thought that Daredevil was safe, especially considering just how stunning the Charlie Cox-headliner’s recent third season was.
The official word on this news reads:
Marvel’s Daredevil will not return for a fourth season on Netflix. We are tremendously proud of the show’s last and final season and although it’s painful for the fans, we feel it best to close this chapter on a high note. We’re thankful to showrunner Erik Oleson, the show’s writers, stellar crew and incredible cast including Charlie Cox as Daredevil himself, and we’re grateful to the fans who have supported the show over the years. While the series on Netflix has ended, the three existing seasons will remain on the service for years to come, while the Daredevil character will live on in future projects for Marvel.
If you remember back, Disney is in the midst of developing their own streaming service. Due to that, many have been clinging on to the hope that Mike Colter’s Luke Cage and Finn Jones’ Iron Fist would be given their own shows or a team-up effort on said on-demand service.
Could it be that this is all merely part of a plan to move Netflix’s Marvel heroes over to this Disney service? And if so, does that mean that we can expect similar cancellations for Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Marvel’s The Punisher once their third and second seasons, respectively, have aired on Netflix?
Similarly, there’s the interesting line of “while the Daredevil character will live on in future projects for Marvel”. That could mean the current incarnations of Daredevil and these other Marvel characters, or it could mean that we’ve seen the last of Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Luke Cage, Finn Jones and Jon Bernthal’s takes on these characters, and there are plans for new versions of these heroes to be developed for the Disney streaming service.
There’s also rumblings out there that Disney is looking to give these characters a more PG-driven feel for their streaming service, which certainly is a different approach to what we’ve seen so far in the gritty, brutal Netflix efforts. Then, of course, it might be that there are plans to introduce Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher into the main Marvel Cinematic Universe, as oppose to loosely existing in that same realm.
Either way, Marvel’s Daredevil has been one of the very best genre shows of recent years, and hearing that the series has been scrapped after three seasons – three seasons all of ridiculously high quality – is a gut punch for many genre fans.
As ever, expect more on all of this if and when things develop further for these fan favourite characters.
