Netflix doesn’t seem like it can do much wrong, and even the service’s minor missteps are overshadowed by the plethora of great content they’re delivering on a routine basis. One extremely high point has been Daredevil, which ramped up fans’ expectations for the rest of the upcoming Marvel shows. Thankfully, the powers that be won’t make audiences wait quite as long as we originally thought, and Netflix plans on unleashing a new Marvel series around twice a year.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos offered up a slew of new info regarding the streaming platform’s upcoming slate of original series, and it didn’t take long for the super-shows to get mentioned.
I think ideally there will be a rhythm of about every six months you’ll get a new season or a new series from the Defenders group. And they’ll crossover into a combined season [the Defenders miniseries] once we’ve launched the first season of each of the four characters…Some will selectively have multiple seasons as they come out of the gate. So there will probably be two launches a year.
That’s encouraging, considering after the Netflix/Marvel deal was first announced, it looked like we’d only be getting a new show once a year or so. That would have been a strain on people’s attention spans, especially when multiple seasons come into play, but this updated scheduling plan sounds a lot more sensible. Now all we have to do is hope that the rest of the series are as solid from the get-go as Daredevil was, which will be no small feat, since the others are lesser-known characters to the non-comic-reading world.
It’s also interesting how he mentions that some of the Marvel series will get multiple seasons, but presumably not all of them. We already know Daredevil is coming back for Season 2, and we also know that it’s virtually impossible for Netflix to allow a show to end after only one season. So which of our remaining heroes will only get one shot at the spotlight? It seems like Luke Cage would get the most limited time, since that character also fits in with Jessica Jones and Iron Fist and wouldn’t necessarily need more stand-alone stories after his initial arc is completed. But then maybe the decisions will come down to which shows do the best with critics and audiences, rather than anything story-related. Also, does this plan include the possible Punisher-centered spinoff or the rumored Thunderbolts series?
Sadly, it’ll probably still be a while before we find out any more information on Luke Cage or Iron Fist’s plots and casting, as Sarandos said that things are “always a little extra complex with Marvel when announcing things,” according to IGN. So for now, we’ll just have to wait and see how well Jessica Jones does when it hits Netflix in late 2015.
