Five years ago, Marvel and Netflix entered into a partnership to produce miniseries for streaming featuring street-operating Marvel superheroes, with a shared setting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This brilliant move enabled Marvel to tell more mature and violent stories separate from the more general-patronage fare of the MCU films.
The results of the Marvel-Netflix were, for the most part, major successes on online streaming, with gritty adventures featuring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and the Punisher. However, following no more than three seasons in some these shows, Netflix had begun cancelling these MCU miniseries one by one.
As CNBC reports, Netflix has announced the cancellation of its last two Marvel Television co-productions this Monday, February 18. These are “Jessica Jones†starring Krysten Ritter and “The Punisher†with Jon Bernthal. The latter just had its second, and now final, season premiere on the streaming giant on January 18, with the former’s third, already finished but not yet dated.
“We are grateful to Marvel for five years of our fruitful partnership and thank the passionate fans who have followed these series from the beginning,” read an official statement from Netflix regarding the cancellation of the last remaining MCU miniseries in their lineup.
While all companies involved seem to enforce a rule of silence over the reasons, this decision most likely comes from the impending launch of the Disney+ exclusive streaming platform this year, for which the House of Mouse has started pulling out most its media content from Netflix.
In line with this, Marvel has slated new streaming series that are being developed for streaming on Disney+, to be top-billed by existing characters from the MCU movies such as Loki, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
All seasons made of the Marvel-Netflix shows will remain on the latter’s platform for a time, despite their cancellation. Netflix meanwhile is branching into other comic book properties to adapt, such as the Millarworld label by veteran comic-book creator Mark Millar. It has already premiered a new series based on the Dark Horse Comics title “The Umbrella Academy†last week.