Marvel TV News

I haven't posted in quite some time--the death of my father threw off a lot of things--but here we are with an update on various Marvel Netflix shows along with a little of the broader MCU. Beware of SPOILERS for all previously released Netflix titles.

I was underwhelmed by the second trailer for Jessica Jones season two. Most of the footage is cobbled together from season one or The Defenders and at this stage I'd expect something that's a bit clearer on the plot. I understand the intent may simply be to inform newer viewers of what kind of character she is, but using recycled footage is an odd choice if that's the idea ("Watch our new show! See none of these scenes in it!"). With that said, it hasn't hurt my excitement for the show, but there's nothing to really breakdown from it. Showing Luke Cage is an interesting choice--a good one if he shows up, a poor one if he doesn't (it would be very easy for Mike Colter and/or Finn Jones, as Iron Fist, to show up as both were filming Luke Cage for much of the same time--four months--as Jessica Jones).

Vincent D'Onfrio talked about the deal he made with Marvel when he signed on to play Wilson Fisk and it's very interesting:

We made a deal, before the first season [2014], that I could come in and out of the show. We made an agreement that we would give each other a head’s up, throughout the years, so they’d know my availability. So, we picked a particular amount of time that he would give me the heads up on, if they needed me to come in. That particular amount of time, I won’t tell you, but that’s the agreement that we have.

This is a great deal for Marvel as it means with notice D'Onfrio is on-tap to appear when they need him (hopefully--and I think probably--he'll be the central villain for the next Defenders). For those who want to guess how much notice he requires I looked for potential clues from his other work: the show Ghost Wars wrapped in August and the movie he directed called The Kid ended its filming in October (A Fall from Grace was filmed in 2012 but has yet to be released, so while it sits near the top of his upcoming films isn't relevant). Given that D'Onofrio has largely kept the weight on, the only physical tweak for him seems to be shaving his head, meaning this kind of detective work has limited value.

The Hashtag Show has yet another scoop: character breakdowns for Punisher season two (this  suggests Netflix decided on a second season long before its announcement). Here's the gist:

The breakdowns below are for two series regulars [...]: ANNIE BEIR and KIM DAVIS. For the role of ANNIE, they are looking for an 18-year old female to play a 16-year old on the show. She’s been described [as] someone who is used to the streets and is both scrappy and aware of her environment. For the role of KIM, they are looking for a female in her mid-30s, open ethnicity, to become a series regular working as a therapist. ... We’re told that a casting search is underway for a [series regular] male of any ethnicity in his early 30s to play an honest detective by the name of MELVIN SKELLING

They speculate that Annie is Viorica from the comics and Kim is Jennifer Cooke--both are from the "Slavers" storyline by Garth Ennis (2005-06) which focuses on a sex slave ring (the former a victim, the latter a social worker). Melvin, they believe, is Martin Soap, a detective also from the Ennis run (he was in charge of the Punisher Task Force). These are reasonable guesses--certainly the story is evocative enough to motivate Castle into punishing those responsible. I'm curious if showrunner Steve Lightfoot will be given the go-ahead to connect Frank's stories to the other Defenders (something he was denied for the first season).

Production is apparently ramping up as well, as SpoilerTV is reporting filming will begin February 26th (with an end date of July 20th)--this would fit the usual timeframe for the Netflix shows of filming for five months.

I don't think Charlie Schneider is particularly good at breaking news (he's a summarizer, not a journalist), but in a recent video he talked about Iron Fist temporarily taking over Daredevil's identity in his second series (something that has happened in the comics under very different circumstances, such as in the first Civil War). This theory would rely on Iron Fist coming out before Daredevil, despite the latter beginning filming a month before the other (November 13th vs December 13th; albeit they both wrap in May). If this happens (and I consider it unlikely just based on Charlie), it wouldn't be the first Marvel Netflix show to appear out of sequence (The Punisher started filming four weeks before The Defenders). My belief is Schneider's theory comes from the final shot of Iron Fist at the end of The Defenders, but I haven't seen any other news to suggest it. Charlie has also been calling Luke Cage season two "Heroes for Hire" without any support from other sources--presumably this is because Danny Rand is appearing in it. I'm not saying none of this is true, but until there are other sources talking about it I'd take it as speculation. Do I think these are good ideas for the character? Absolutely. Netflix Danny Rand needs some wins to change the perceptions of him.

It's without question that The Defenders, while an entertaining series, was a disappointment for Marvel fans in the wake of the stunning success of some of the shows leading up to it. In the aftermath of that reaction--along with varied criticisms of both Iron Fist and Luke Cage--I felt like Marvel would make some adjustments to what it was doing on Netflix. The most beloved shows, Daredevil and Jessica Jones, are gritty and grounded at their best, and the reception of The Punisher (cut from the same cloth, albeit less popular with critics than fans) simply emphasizes the point.

So what is Netflix doing? Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were already filming when the team-up came out, so they were only responding to reactions beforehand (one of the few criticisms of JJ was a lack of action, while LC was criticized for pacing issues and a lackluster villain, ie, Diamondback). Daredevil and Iron First, however, got the benefit of hindsight. What I've noticed, and take this with a grain of salt, is an increase in the casting of law enforcement characters. While this makes sense contextually for all the characters, the decision to include FBI Agents seems a bit more specific and outside the normal purview. Daredevil season three has one (cast regular Wilson Bethel, whose character name is unknown) and Iron Fist season two does as well (Tanya Parker, possibly played by Alice Eve). Is this part of a larger set-up for the next Defenders? The FBI would certainly fit a Kingpin story. That said, it's just a theory.

One of the interesting things on the heels of The Punisher's release is the under reported reaction to it. The show's critical rating is low (only higher than Iron Fist among the Netflix offerings) and frankly there wasn't a lot of press material written about it (other than the obvious debate about violence). What there has been, however, is an extremely high audience score and a wide variety of reaction videos to it that continue to be posted even now--from a cursory look these are far more popular than those for The Defenders and Iron Fist and it wouldn't surprise me if it's had the most impact since Jessica Jones.

B-Stories

All the Netflix shows have had B-stories in them--major subplots involving supporting characters--and I thought it was worth briefly going through them to look at their strengths and weaknesses:

Daredevil season one
Karen Page - an excellent subplot where she transitions from a victim to a proactive character. Initially she serves both Matt's arc as a lawyer and as Daredevil, but becomes the hero of her own mini-story, freeing herself from Wesley (a story that literally no one knows about in-universe); she doesn't suddenly start kicking ass (a poor decision they've made, incidentally, with Claire Temple--not every character in the shows should be beating on people), but simply becomes a stronger version of who she was in the beginning.

Jessica Jones
Trish Walker - an excellent subplot whereby her complete arc is about becoming a hero--transitioning from having to be saved from Simpson to then defeating him--there are some similarities with Karen here, except Trish is never as fragile or terrified and Simpson has abilities the criminals threatening Karen do not; the arc is largely an affirmation of the work and intent Trish has to start with (she desperately wants to be a hero).
Jeri Hogarth - more of a C-plot, but a solid arc involving a love triangle where Hogarth's narcissism causes her to lose both partners; it's not clear Hogarth learns anything from this, or evolves, but it's a powerful illustration of her self-destruction tendencies.

Daredevil season two (directly carried on in The Defenders)
Elektra - a cliched mess where a sociopath...remains a sociopath? Unfortunately there's no arc for her at all--Elektra-the-child is the same as Elektra-the-adult (one of the reasons she didn't resonate with fans); this failed so poorly it's unlikely we'll ever see the character again. The fault for this rests with adapters Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez (showrunners on DD2 as well as TD), and tangentially on Frank Miller's 90s retcon of the character (the latter is still popular with comicbook readers, but I think it's a much poorer version of the character).
Foggy Nelson - a C-plot, but one that helps shift Foggy from simply serving as a Daredevil foil to rounding him out as a good lawyer--it was a smart move to have him independently defend Frank Castle and helped what was a fairly weak character in the first season.

Luke Cage
Misty Knight - the arc is a mess, with Misty fighting with the police internally due to her inconsistently written choices as a cop--the attempt to show her go from calm detective to angry isn't serviced well enough to work (the motivation is there: Scarf's death and betrayal, but it's so poorly done it's not effective). The Defenders shifts her more towards the calmer side, albeit she spends most of the show as plot-service so there's plenty of room to clean-up her characterization.

Iron Fist
Ward Meachum - my favourite B-arc in all the shows and actually better than the A-plot for Danny Rand, Ward undergoes a complete transformation from a narcissistic, self-indulgent asshole to becoming someone who recognizes his personal failings and how he has to grow and be a better person; the performance is fantastic and I'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

The Defenders
Danny Rand - technically he's one of the A-plots, but as he's largely used as plot-service (once he's taken captive he stops being an active participant in the story) so I think he fits here. Denied personal growth in his own show for the purposes of the team-up, here he undergoes the transformation from angry, single-minded man-child to a more rounded person; it's poorly written, but intermittently effective--leaving room for Cheo Hodari Coker to help grow the character in Luke Cage (when he'll next appear).

The Punisher
Micro - virtually an A-plot, Lieberman's story is entertaining as he both has a great personal stake in the main plot and an arc to go through himself (returning to his family)--he's also a welcome foil to Frank's personality. The arc's only weakness is that Micro doesn't really evolve as a person (something that isn't always required, but more evocative when it happens).
Dinah Madani - a mixed bag as her motivations are fairly bland (she's looking for career growth and recognition) that's marred by middling writing (she makes a lot of poor choices that others have to save her from--this echoes Danny Rand's arc in his own series).

Jon Schnepp, on the heels of his failed Moon Knight prediction for The Punisher, claims that Spider-Man will appear in Venom; unlike the former prediction many other outlets have reported it. The rumour has been further refined to say Peter Parker will appear as opposed to Spider-Man, but in what capacity remains unknown, as does it's implications for Sony's involvement in the broader MCU. Most of the theories I've seen believe it's an attempt by Sony to shoehorn their own films into the MCU with whatever wiggle room exists in the agreement.

With the bizarre state of it-is-but-isn't connected to the MCU, the second Spider-Man film is apparently casting a European femme fatal (this is again from The Hashtag Show), with every outlet struggling to figure out which character this might be (other than one of those from Sony's stable, presumably, as it benefits Marvel to include them in official MCU productions). Early predictions that it would be Gwen Stacy seem off-target (what would be the point when a romance with Michelle is the next logical step?).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Marvel TV News

The rumoured purchase of Fox by Disney is now official and means that both the X-Men and Fantastic Four are returning to the MCU. This likely has no impact on the Netflix side of things, but certainly for TV in general it opens a lot of doors. As for the movies, presumably all the Fox films currently (or nearly) completed will come out as-is in 2018 (so New Mutants in April, Deadpool 2 in June, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix in November), with the reboots for the mutant franchises to come afterwards (the Channing Tatum Gambit movie, scheduled to start filming in March, may also go ahead). What will be interesting is: when will we start to get easter eggs for this stuff and how quickly will characters begin appearing in the MCU? The sale opens the door for changes to Captain Marvel (the Super Skrull is now available), although I don't think any other film on the current slate is likely to include elements of the returned properties (Jude Terror thinks it will be as early as a Avengers: Infinity War post-credit scene, but I see this as wishful thinking). In general I think we'll see The Fantastic Four first, but the idea floating around that mutants won't appear on film until 2020 or 2021 is, I think, absurd--there's no point in acquiring the IP and not getting out it ASAP.

This event has lead to people losing their minds--I don't mean the excitement amongst fans, rather it's entertainment pundits losing their senses and posing a variety of ridiculous theories about the purchase--ranging from the end of the Deadpool franchise (Disney won't allow an R-rated movie!) to keeping the X-Men completely separate and under the same auspices at Fox (John Campea suggesting this is understandable, but I have no idea what Charlie Schneider was smoking to suggest it--what would be the point of the acquisition if the status quo remains unchanged?). It's abundantly clear from how Marvel has hid its slate of films in Phase Four that plans for this possibility were long-considered (much like the inclusion of Spider-Man predated Civil War by a considerable margin--Kevin Feige made comments back in 2015 talking about their contingencies should things like this occur). Beyond the obvious point that we'll be getting a Fantastic Four reboot in the MCU, it also makes sense to reboot the X-franchises to avoid brand confusion and get away from Fox's nonsensical continuity and erratic quality.

Another interesting question is: how many MCU films a year will we get now? Each studio is releasing three movies in 2018--will that volume be maintained by Marvel or will they cut back? At minimum I think we'll get four Marvel movies a year, but more is certainly feasible.

We now have a date for Jessica Jones season two: March 8th, 2018. This is later than my prediction (January-February, favouring January), but fits in nicely with International Women's Day and previous releases (Daredevil season two and Iron Fist were also March releases). This also begins the framework for when the other shows will air. If it's a matter of symmetry then it will be a show at three-month intervals (Luke Cage in June, Daredevil in September, and Iron Fist in December). That said, there's nothing preventing Netflix from fitting them closer together if they wish (the original plan for The Punisher was October, just two months after The Defenders). The latter two shows (DD and IF) are filming at essentially the same time (with even more overlap than JJ and LC, which shared three months of filming vs the four DD and IF will have), making it easy to drop them within close proximity (there's been no hint that Luke will appear in JJ2, despite the parallel filming, incidentally). Indeed, with how closely together they are being produced it's possible we might see IF drop before DD (a precedent established by The Defenders vs The Punisher, granting very different circumstances). I think it would benefit the shows to cross pollinate more--it makes them more interconnected and would help with hype for The Defenders--while that's clearly the case for LC and IF, it will be interesting to see if either JJ or DD follows suit.

I thought the teaser for JJ season two was solid (the musical choice was great)--there was an emphasis on action, which seems like a direct response to the (albeit infrequent) complaints about the first season. The only revelation was that the Oscar Ramirez character is a love-interest (I'd mentioned previously that I thought the show would maintain an interracial relationship to mimic the absent Luke Cage--whose relationship with Claire Temple seems likely to continue--although I hadn't pegged Oscar as that person).

We still know very little about the plot, outside earlier comments that it would delve into the IGH story teased in season one (leaving room for more superpowered individuals if they choose to go that way). Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg said recently:

We’re allowing Carrie-Anne Moss and Hogarth’s story line, Rachael Taylor who plays Trish, and Eka Darville who plays Malcolm to have more opportunities for development so our world will feel a little bigger. The show is still totally focused on Jessica, but the supporting players are getting great moments to shine this season.

This is interesting because all three supporting character had story arcs in the first season (very good ones; Hogarth's divorce, Trish's relationship with Simpson (aka Nuke), and Malcolm's drug addiction via Kilgrave), so I'm not sure what this means exactly. It does make me wonder if the casting call for Ingrid (Leah Gibson's character) might be as a new love interest for Hogarth (Rosenberg worked with Gibson on Twilight, incidentally).

One of the interesting consequences of the long gap between JJ seasons is that most of the writers from season one are gone (Scott Reynolds went to Iron Fist and then Inhumans; Micah Schraft to Jane the Virgin; Hilly Hicks to Feed the Beast; Dana Baratta to Good Behaviour; Liz Friedman to Conviction; and Edward Ricourt to Wayward Pines). Potentially only two writers, plus Rosenberg herself, remain, and neither of those two (Jamie King and Jenna Reback) contributed to more than one episode. Whether this will impact the quality of the writing this season remains to be seen.

Incidentally, speaking of writers from the Marvel Netflix series, Lauren Schmidt Hissirch (who worked on Daredevil season two and The Defenders) will showrun Netflix's Witcher.

I didn't mention it at the time, but I find it interesting that new showrunner Erik Oleson was only announced on October 25th, with filming beginning just nineteen days later (November 13th). I have to think he was involved before that (possibly working with scripts from previous showrunners, Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez). The late switch is unusual, with the closest parallel being Daredevil season one (showrunner Drew Goddard dropped out with Steven S. DeKnight taking over May 24th--filming beginning in July). I haven't found any reporting on what happened to previous show runner Marco Ramirez--did he leave, was it a mutual parting of ways, or was he let go? Regardless, with twenty months since the release of season two the third season should be well planned.

The official announcement for season two has dropped. This is pretty fast for Netflix to publicly renew (just under a month), implying a lot of confidence in the property (I still haven't seen any stories talking about viewership numbers, although those can take months to come out). While no details were provided, I assume Steve Lightfoot will remain as showrunner and that Jigsaw will be the main (or one of the main) antagonists. Logistically Netflix could film and debut the show in 2018, but while the former is a lock I wouldn't expect it until 2019. This is a good interview with Lightfoot about the first season, incidentally.

Speaking of interesting articles, there's one on Vox about The Punisher's approach to dealing with the topic of PTSD. The author is, I think, far too generous towards those who complained about the show's violence (which boils down to it somehow celebrating violence which encourages it--this ridiculous idea falls apart if you apply it to anything else (eg, you enjoy crime shows, therefore you both encourage crime and wish to commit them! It's absurd).

In a somewhat similar vein, why does Hollywood Reporter's Lesley Goldberg say this when talking about the season renewal:

After less than a month, the show has a 60 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the 94 percent audience score painting a different picture among the show's diehard fanboy target audience

There's no good reason to use the term "fanboy" here ("diehard" is questionable, as he has no idea who is voting for the show on the site, but it's a little less egregious)--it's meant as a slight and suggests a lot of bitterness from Goldberg about the audience reception. What's his investment? I find this kind of thing bizarre--if he has some moral or ethical objection to the show then he should bring it up, otherwise his personal opinion is irrelevant to what is simply a news release.

I didn't reflect on this at the time because saying something is "for the fans" is normal rhetoric for anything excoriated by critics, but I do want to briefly comment on part of Finn Jones' comments from earlier this year:

I think some of the reviews we saw were seeing the show through a very specific lens

This part of his statement is, I think, absolutely correct. Putting aside what you thought about the show personally, one of the clearest things from the myriad of reviews was that each one had a very specific idea going into the show what they wanted from it. We could put some blame on the marketing perhaps, but (as I've said previously) it seemed like everyone had either the Immortal Iron Fist in their heads or a 70s style Kung Fu epic--this sentiment is still reflected in expectations for the upcoming season.

As bad as Inhumans ratings were, it's interesting to see the much-praised Agents of SHIELD (100% again this season?) slip below that watermark after the premiere (1.93/0.5, 1.84/0.5). Ratings for The Gifted also continue to slide, this time not just with general audiences, but also the key demographic (2.81/0.8 and 2.78/0.8). AoS has been in decline for a long time and is only on-air due to Disney's demands (what the ratings suggest is that this, indeed, will be its last season). As for the Fox show, in lieu of Disney's purchase and the declining ratings, cancellation seems likely (we might get something similar in the future, but a more coherent version of Bryan Singer's one-note view of mutant characters).

I wonder if one of the reasons Netflix is producing their Marvel series' in such quick succession is because they felt The Defenders was hurt by the long gap between shows (both of the upcoming seasons of JJ and DD will be over two years later). I'm just speculating, but you have to think that releasing them close together throughout the year will help build buzz and momentum for the team-up.

I'm also curious when exactly the Netflix shows realised the MCU (as in, the movies) were completely ignoring them. Daredevil season one, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage feature prominent MCU connections (eg: Fisk's plan begins through exploiting the damage done to the city via The Avengers; JJ has the subplot of the couple who try to kill her because of "the incident"; LC's plot heavily involves Justin Hammer tech), but Daredevil season two, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher do not. I'm not sure if the effort to distance themselves is simply acknowledging a reality or trying to set apart the Netflix shows. I think the shows are better off being referential even if they are being ignored--it lends verisimilitude to the idea of them being in the same universe (and fans like the easter eggs).

Going back to the discussion of what characters are available for Netflix to use: there were rumours back in the August of 2016 that four pilots (including White Tiger) were presented to Netflix as potential series' (the notorious Umberto Gonzalez disputed this at the time, which, at this point, seems to be correct). I'm less interested in whether pilots were shot or proposals were made and more if Netflix was offered other IP--it seems that if they were, they passed on it, but I do wonder when Disney decided to go ahead with their own streaming service and stop expanding their footprint at Netflix. It seems like it was last year, with Cloak & Dagger's announcement (April, 2016), followed by Ghost Rider appearing in AoS (July, 2016), and then The Runaways and New Warriors announcement (August, 2016).

One of the funny things that I've heard repeatedly about Avengers: Infinity War is that there are (or could be) too many characters. This is one of those statements that makes no sense whatsoever without context. There's no magical threshold where there are "too many" characters. One of the struggles some critics (and fans) have is adjusting their perception from individual, self-contained films versus the serialized approach of the MCU. If AIW was a stand alone film, or the first of a series, then you could make an argument that there's not enough screen time to support all the characters that appear. That's simply not the case here. Marvel can reasonably assume that most of its audience has seen some of the films and therefore does not need to do the establishing work that a solo film requires. Fans know who Tony Stark is, so the Russo's only need to worry about what he's doing within the context of the film (if you think about the first Avengers film, a fan only needed to see Iron Man and Thor to understand the team-up). Lazy sentiments like this drive me crazy. It's like when critics complain about there "being too much CG" in a film--the amount isn't relevant, it's how good it is and how well it works with the property (this goes along with the "MCU villains are bad" sentiment, which is pretty ridiculous at this point).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Marvel TV News

In my last post I addressed concerns that the Netflix shows would be pulled to become part of Disney's streaming service (it has since been confirmed that they will stay). We now know that not only will the shows remain but that Netflix owns the IP. It's not clear from Ted Sarandos' comments what that IP consists of (he simply said "the Defenders", presumably meaning all five series-leading characters: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and the Punisher, who were packaged with supporting characters--how many that we haven't seen is unknown). If that's the case then Netflix could theoretically expand their Marvel shows to include the Daughters of the Dragon, Hellcat, Elektra (if she had been popular--rebooting her at this stage is probably impossible), etc. That said, this is clearly part of the reason why more and more side characters are being created for the shows.

It's an interesting question: which characters were folded into the IP (especially as it's unlikely more will be handed over, meaning characters like Moon Knight won't appear on the Netflix platform--although the case of White Tiger is more complicated, see below). Because Daredevil and the Punisher's rights were previously sold, it's likely the character packages provided to Netflix are similar (certainly both Kingpin and Elektra continue to be part of Matt Murdock's universe). Many of the Jessica Jones' comic roster are characters intended for film, so much of what we've seen on her show is a hodgepodge of her own (like Malcolm) with replacements like Trish Walker (instead of Carol Danvers) and Nuke (a Daredevil villain). Luke Cage and Iron Fist have a small roster of their own villains (most of the latter's big names have already been used, see below), with many of their more traditional supervillains not fitting into the Netflix format (that is to say, grounded).

The other question is: how does owning that IP impact the characters appearing in the movies? Presumably that was negotiated as part of the original deal (Charlie Cox has a movie option in his contract, suggesting something is already worked out). I assume that, while Netflix controls their rights to some extent, Marvel is allowed to use them in the movies if they wish (in cameos or as supporting characters)--a usage now vastly unlikely because Marvel won't want to help a competitor (Netflix). The other confusion is that both Luke Cage and Black Panther seem to be using the same character (something that may no longer be happening; I recall Coker saying that she was "just a name" for the film, but can't find the quote so take that with a grain of salt). I feel like the cases of film duplicating TV are accidental--easter eggs where the film-side had no idea that the TV-side was using the character (this would apply to the Doctor Strange/Runaways double cast as well).

Variety reports that Wilson Bethel has been cast as a series regular playing an FBI agent in Daredevil season three. This is not the same FBI agent casting call we saw most recently, but does seem to match what The Hashtag Show posted months earlier (same link). Their speculation, which has been copied elsewhere, is that his character might be Sin-Eater--I think that's questionable (he's awfully similar to the Punisher as well as being a Spiderman character--so presumably owned by Sony), but CBR's contention that he's taking over Nuke's role in the story (the character perhaps unavailable due to Jessica Jones) makes sense (whoever they are). Thematically the FBI angle echoes The Punisher and I wonder if the Netflix writers are trying to make a more concerted/coherent effort for their lead-in to the next Defenders series (this, incidentally, would not have impacted Jessica Jones' season two, as it was written in the summer of 2016, long before such a shift could have occurred).

While the other three Defenders have had their most iconic personalities appear already, Daredevil still awaits Bullseye and Typhoid Mary. Because the former's background remains a mystery Netflix can do whatever they want with it, while the latter could easily fit into season three's arc if they choose (given her connection to the Kingpin).

I mentioned White Tiger as being a possible exception to the general crushing of various Netflix rumours (Moon Knight, Namor, Blade, Captain Britain, and Spider-Woman) and that's because she's not necessarily hitched to her own IP. While the others have quite distinct, stand-alone histories, Angela Del Toro is strongly linked to Daredevil and outside of a mini-series has never lead her own comic. This suggests she could be folded into another IP and her specific reference in Jessica Jones may mean she's part of the Netflix package (whether that's Daredevil or Jessica Jones is hard to say). Countering this would be the various references in Daredevil season one, which seem purely like easter eggs, but I bring it up because the standing of White Tiger as IP isn't clear (particularly as there have been five characters who have worn that identity).

Speaking of casting, The Hashtag Show is reporting Iron Fist is looking for a series regular: (open ethnicity) dubbed Tanya Parker (this may be the role Alice Eve has just landed, but that's not clear): "a freelance covert operative, Tanya has carried out many high-level missions. A chameleon adept at playing roles, Tanya inhabits the “part” that best fits the mission." They speculate this is Lady Gorgon, a minor Punisher character (with the usual short lifespan of most Punisher villains, eight issues from 2008-11), an assassin for The Hand. I think the reason the Hashtag guys picked her is that her first name is Tanya and that she's a martial artist, but I believe the Netflix shows (including Iron Fist) are going to steer clear of The Hand for awhile given its lukewarm reception (there's also no chance they'd have open ethnicity auditions for an Asian character). I've seen others speculate that she's a character connected to the Immortal Iron Fist run (Tiger's Beautiful Daughter specifically), but there's not much left to use from that run and the show can't afford to do it justice anyway (a reality some fans cannot accept--it also has the same ethnicity problem as Lady Gorgon). As I mentioned months ago there's not a lot of Iron Fist source material left to work with unless Luke Cage is involved and it's quite likely the Tanya character has been created for the show (just like Dinah Madani was for The Punisher--there's no guarantee her name will even be "Tanya"). If I was picking from Danny Rand's roster, incidentally, I'd go with former KGB operative Ninotchka (who was a member of the same Russian program that trained Black Widow).

The broader question is, will the show double down on mysticism, or will it go the pulpy route of the Heroes for Hire comics, or will it do something more grounded? I'd prefer the show do the latter, as it fits in better with the general tone on Netflix and would suit having the Kingpin as the main villain in a second season of Defenders (as yet we have no idea if that's planned).

Of all the shows Iron Fist is the one most able to respond to the reaction both to its first season and The Defenders. New showrunner Raven Metzner was only announced in July and while I'm sure there were ideas and possibly even scripts for season two before that I assume they have been tossed aside or scrubbed thoroughly since. We know very little about what's planned--the return of Sacha Dhawan (Davos) is unchanged, but we don't know if the inclusion of Misty Knight was added after audience reaction or planned all along (given comments suggesting the inclusion of Danny in Luke Cage was in response to the audience, I'd guess it was not the original plan). The idea of Danny's evolution as a character in The Defenders clearly was the original conception, but from audience (and critical) response another change is allowing Finn Jones to work on his Kung Fu prior to the start of the season (and, undoubtedly, give him his costume).

CBR's Renaldo Matadeen believes Hulu is the wrong platform for The Runaways, arguing it's missing out on a much larger audience by not being on Netflix or Amazon. In a literal sense he's correct--less people will watch the show because of the platform--although this also means the bar for success is significantly lower. I haven't seen numbers to suggest how it's performing, but there's little reason not to expect the show to continue--it's a critical success and even if Hulu can't or won't support it Marvel can simply shift it elsewhere. If Disney buys Fox and uses Hulu as their platform, then The Runaways will be well-positioned for a viewership bump in the future.

I wanted to make a short comment about why I don't discuss Agents of SHIELD because I haven't explained it before: I've never watched the show. As intrigued as I was with the "it's all connected" idea when the show debuted back in 2013, I thought resurrecting Coulson was a dumb idea (however much I like Clark Gregg; Joss Whedon, responsible for both killing and resurrecting him, has said conflicting things about it since), and that the network format of 22-episodes is far too much content to support a show like it. Over time, as the movies continue to ignore the TV-side and it had extremely limited connection to the Netflix characters, any reason I had to get into it has simply disappeared. I'm not saying the show is bad--it might be excellent--I just haven't been drawn in. If there were ever genuine, meaningful crossovers with the movies or the Netflix shows, that might draw me in.

John Campea claims that even if Fox sells its movie division to another company the comic rights they own will revert back to Marvel (although he admits there may be legalities he's not familiar with). If he's correct I'm not sure it would apply to the Fantastic Four, since their rights are owned by Constantine Films (what Fox has are distribution rights, much like Universal does for the Hulk--these are, presumably, rights they could sell). That being said, it seems extremely unlikely Fox will sell to anyone other than Disney at this point in order to avoid possible legal hurdles (like the legal challenges to AT&T's takeover of TimeWarner).

Incidentally, there's been a lot of confusion in some of the fan-reporting on the potential merger (for example) with the biggest errors over which assets Marvel would actually be acquiring.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Marvel TV News

[Mild SPOILERS below for The Punisher]

Showrunner Steve Lightfoot said the exclusion of the other Defenders in The Punisher was a demand from on-high:

I think it's something that you need to talk to someone in Marvel about that because when I came in to take the show on, it was always very clear to me that they wanted it to sort of tell its own story and run on its own track and not really intersect with what was happening in The Defenders. That was part of the brief.

It's an interesting decision by the executives and I'll be interested to find out why. I don't think the decision is bad per se, just curious.

My review for the show is forthcoming, but I will say predictions for a tie-in with a new hero (like Moon Knight) crashed and burned in what was a fantastic show. We also saw yet more reviews impacted by the Nanny State. I'm old enough to remember the fatuous concerns being mouthed by the right in the 80s and 90s about things like Dungeons & Dragons (it was going to lead to Satanism and violence) and violent video games (also leading to violence)--all things easily debunked, but that circulated in the news for decades. It's disconcerting to see the same nonsense coming from people on the left. Fortunately, none of this seems to have impacted viewers who have overwhelming approved of the show (and, over time, we'll see critical opinion adjust accordingly).

With the announcement of the forthcoming Disney streaming service it's been suggested
that there will be no new Netflix shows, albeit Disney is not pulling them. Given that Disney's service is meant to be family friendly and that all the properties on Netflix are not, does this mean more mature shows will go to Hulu or will Disney simply make nothing adult-oriented? I find the latter hard to believe.

A more interesting possibility, and not one I've seen mentioned, is that Marvel shows will be taken off ABC--that superhero content will be reserved for streaming channels. While the Netflix shows have all been successful, ABC's content has failed to varying degrees (Agent Carter was cancelled after two seasons, Agents of SHIELD is currently on-air only due to a corporate mandate, and Inhumans is touch-and-go for cancellation). For whatever reason the network approach simply hasn't worked for Marvel, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last season ABC has that content.

Luke Cage has wrapped filming, slightly before expectations (December) and well before the initially reported end point (March). The five-month period is in line with both Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but two months shorter than the first season of Luke Cage. At this stage it seems like Netflix has settled into a production pattern for their Marvel properties and we can assume five months is generally how long filming will take.

Production for Iron Fist season two will begin December 6th (confirming an old Screen Rant rumour), while Daredevil season three began November 13th (it wouldn't be a surprise if we see more Heroes for Hire in Iron Fist, incidentally).  These start times are close to previous predictions (Daredevil starting a month later and Iron Fist a month earlier), but both schedules would still allow for all four shows to air in 2018 (my prevailing theory, which has Jessica Jones in January, Luke Cage in April, Daredevil in July, and Iron Fist in October).

Speaking of Daredevil. the show has another casting call out which includes a series regular and some possible recurring characters (all of whom are FBI agents, something that matches the casting call from over a month ago). It's hard not to see parallels to The Punisher, albeit the presence of FBI agents doesn't mean there will be any connection between the two (the description seems similar to the Dinah Madani character). The Hashtag Show, which is the source of the information, has no suggestions for comic book parallels to the listing and it seems likely they are created for the show. The same article wonders if the FBI connection might lead into an Angela del Toro (aka White Tiger) appearance, but that seems like a stretch with the given information. What's interesting to me is that the show made a significant change in its casting call for this particular regular--the initial call was for a male, mid to late 30s, of Indian descent who could speak Hindi. The revised call aged up the character slightly and removed the Hindi element (looking for someone of Middle Eastern, South Asian, Pakistani, or Israeli heritage).

Filming for Cloak & Dagger has wrapped; the pilot was shot Feb.8-24, with production for the remaining episodes recommencing July 24th. This nearly four month period is on par with The Runaways and, given the shorter episode count, seems like it fits within the framework of how Netflix shoots its Marvel shows.

The New Warriors show is being moved from Freeform because the Disney-owned channel couldn't find space for it in its 2018 schedule (!). Why Freeform couldn't fit it is unknown, but the show is now being shopped because Disney wants it to air next year. Amidst this story is this rumour which is making the rounds:

Sources suggest Disney-owned Marvel is no longer able to sell to outside companies

If that's the case then New Warriors must go to either ABC or Hulu, since Disney's streaming service won't be up earlier than 2019. I'd be leery in accepting this rumour, since none of Disney's owned channels are suitable to the material being shown on Netflix.

I'm behind on my Inhumans reviews, but with the mini-series now over there's a bit of critical retconning--at least from Justin Carter at CBR.

Inhumans' episode seven slipped back towards the low end (1.96) with the finale doing no better (1.95), but both remained steady with the key demographic (0.5). There's no question that Fox's superhero effort, The Gifted, found a more stable audience, albeit that show is seeing a distinct drop (the sixth dropped to 3.17/1.0 and then to 3.0/1.0, it's lowest total yet, albeit steady in the key demographic).

Here's the overall tracking for both shows (keeping in mind Friday shows are 30% lower):
Inhumans
Overall 3.75 - 2.78 - 2.3 - 1.98 - 2.05 - 1.96 - 1.95
(Adding the 30%) 4.87 - 3.61 - 2.99 - 2.57 - 2.66 - 2.54 - 2.53
Key Demographic 0.9 - 0.7 - 0.6 - 0.4 - 0.5 - 0.5 - 0.5
The Gifted
Overall 4.9 - 3.79 - 3.46 - 3.36 - 3.43 - 3.17 - 3.0
Key Demographic 1.5 - 1.2 - 1.1 - 1.0 - 1.1 - 1.0 - 1.0

The two shows started on similar footing and despite being fairly close in raw popularity The Gifted has much better numbers with the 18-49 group (almost double, as even with another 30% Inhumans only hits 0.65). Both shows pale in comparison to quality shows like The Punisher and I wonder what will happen to them going forward.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Marvel TV News

Jon Schnepp implied Moon Knight will appear in The Punisher--if so it would confirm my speculation he would be the rumoured hero appearing (he certainly makes sense in context). I'd guess this will be in the form of a cameo rather than an involved appearance (otherwise there would be marketing attached to it, ala the Punisher in Daredevil season two).

Speaking of predictions, we got confirmation that Vincent D'Onofrio, aka, Wilson Fisk (the Kingpin) will be joining Daredevil season three. New showrunner Erik Oleson (The Man in the High Castle etc) officially announced the decision which makes sense both in terms of fan service and for whatever version of the "Born Again" storyline we're going to get. The other thing this tells us is that Fisk won't appear in The Punisher (something I hadn't seen speculated, but within the realm of possibility given their interactions in Daredevil season two). My hope is that Fisk is the villain The Defenders have to face next--someone grounded and whose background is already understood by fans.

Filming, as far as we know, has not started (refuting MCU Exchange's rumour from a month ago), but presumably will commence soon. Along with this announcement it's also been confirmed that the show will air in 2018.

We know Finn Jones started martial arts training almost a month ago and now his co-star Jessica Henwick is back at it, suggesting the ramp up to Iron Fist season two is underway (my prediction was that filming would start in January, link above, but it could be even sooner).

Runaways filming recently wrapped (the pilot was filmed from February 10-March 3, with the rest of the show begun in June). The four months of filming is a similar timeframe for Netflix shows given that there's just 10 episodes (less the pilot, which presumably consists of the first two episodes). It's official trailer was unfortunately mostly a rehash of the earlier teaser and seemed to get no traction on social media. Hulu needs to work on its marketing (whatever you think of Inhumans there was no escaping the marketing).

An untitled ABC Marvel show has been announced with this premise:

The series will focus on the Sharif family, an ordinary Middle Eastern-American family with two superhero parents at a time when it’s illegal to be a superhero, so they are forced to save the world in secret.

Seemingly these are characters created for the show with a premise that's not far off the Fox default of "Mutant Menace." I worry that without an established character to market this has little hope in succeeding. When I first saw the headline I thought it might connect to a Ms Marvel show, but this clearly isn't that.

IMAX finally commented on their interpretation of what happened with the Inhumans and it's an interesting opinion (link below). They feel the problem was largely audience expectations:

Customers expected a production akin to a mega-budget blockbuster movie, rather than pilots for a television show. Moreover, the fact that this was Marvel IP set the bar at a level you wouldn’t see from other pieces of content or IP because of the reputation and the high production value of Marvel movies.

There's some truth to that I feel--the critical drubbing the movie-version received was far above what was warranted. IMAX's plan is to continue with the concept, but a away from Marvel to avoid those kinds of expectations (IMAX lost 11.1 million on the deal--how far off that was against their expectations is uncertain, as we know they expected to lose money).

Speaking of the Inhumans, the show slipped into terrible ratings territory for episode five, dropping below Agents of SHIELD's average (1.98, with an 0.4 in the key demographic--this is similar to "Wake Up", the least watched episode from AoS last year). The football game clearly hurt, as ratings improved somewhat for episode six (2.13 and 0.5). Comparatively, The Gifted dropped slightly, going from 3.5 to 3.36 (4%), the key demographic slipping from 1.1 to 1.0. This suggests the Fox show has hit its audience making it reasonably successful (it's DVR+ numbers remained steady at 64%).

I mentioned last time that lazy "superhero fatigue" arguments were re-circulating given the lower ratings for shows this fall. Armin is also peddling this crap, but it will be interesting to see if this floats up further into popular entertainment coverage. On its face the idea is ridiculous (as I've discussed before--pretty hard to justify the idea when the movie industry is being floated by comic book popularity). Ratings are falling due to poor writing, directing, etc, with networks pumping out generic crap trying to cash-in. I think the Netflix shows have pushed audience expectations in terms of quality, so mediocre fair isn't going to cut it. Whether this is a continuing trend or just a blip of the season remains to be seen.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Marvel TV News

At long last The Punisher release date dropped, November 17th, the revised date due to the mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1st. While it has never been officially confirmed, Newsday's (Vernon Gay) rumour of a date change is the ultimate source for the flood of stories after the show pulled out of NYCC, with most believing MCU Exchange's scoop date of October 13th was the original plan. Of interest is that the speculated date of November 10th was never in the cards (since the move could easily have been to that spot), but it's not far off summer speculation of November 14th. Interestingly, this puts the show head-to-head against Justice League, albeit other than both being based on comic books they aren't truly in direct competition. Oddly enough, looking at Netflix's schedule you'd think the 10th would be a better date--Stranger Things drops October 27th, Alias Grace November 3rd, and then nothing until Godless November 22nd (which seems similar enough to The Punisher that I think it will suffer from the proximity).

We learned a couple of weeks ago that Finn Jones would appear in Luke Cage season two, but at the time it was unknown if it was simply a cameo or something more. Mike Colter has revealed it will be more extensive than a cameo, saying:

We are teamed up for a bit. That’s the whole point of bringing that flavor to it. I can see how this works. That’s what good about it. We’re giving people what they want. ... let’s give a little Heroes for Hire somewhere in the season and see what happens

This sounds like an actual story arc--whether for a few episodes or more is hard to say (probably not more than half a season). It'll be interesting to see how Cheo Hodari Coker will write Danny Rand (he's been pretty faithful to source material, so I'd expect a more comic book accurate version), as this will be the first time Scott Buck doesn't have any impute on it. I doubt Danny will get his costume however, as that's likely going to be reserved for Iron Fist season two.

Colter couldn't say when the second season will air, but hoped for the first quarter or first half of next year (which would fit my prediction).

The site that posted the story added the following:

Though Jones’ portrayal of Danny Rand was one of the most criticized aspects of The Defenders, and his own series is the most critically-panned of all Netflix series, it was still a hit among viewers.

I'm not sure the former is true, but the latter has to be hard for sites to admit after months of crapping all over Iron Fist.

It's been reported that viewership for The Defenders was the lowest among the Netflix series'. Interestingly enough, despite that the show is the the most binge-watched of those shows (and the third highest ever). Putting aside what you think of the quality of the team-up, one of the lessons learned here is that eight-episodes is simply too easy--too disposable--and Netflix would be better off making it a longer series (something that would allow for development missing from the first installment).

I've been interested in keeping tabs on the ratings for both the Inhumans and The Gifted (I posted my review of the former's episode three--which Midnight's Edge thought was an improvement, while I think it's the weakest; my episode four review is here). The Fox show's troubles carry over from the premiere (which I discuss here)--the dry as dust mutant-menace stuff along with the poorly developed characters and soap opera-like elements (eg the lazy pregnancy plot)--it still gets good performances from Stephen Moyer (Reed Strucker) and Emma Dumont (Polaris). Ratings (also here and here) make for an interesting comparison:
Inhumans: 3.8 - 2.8 - 2.3 (0.9 - 0.7 - 0.6 key demographic) 39% drop since the premiere (33%)
The Gifted: 4.8 - 3.8 - 3.5 (1.5 -1.2 - 1.1 key demographic) 27% drop since the premiere (26%)

It's worth noting the Inhumans drop was much less between episodes 3 and 4 (17%), but more than The Gifted's drop between two and three (7%). Friday nights (when the latter airs) is well-known to have far less viewership than other nights (30% is the figure I've seen), but factoring that in The Gifted is still ahead (Inhumans latest episode would be at 3.0 with that bump). The DVR numbers are important and show both shows with significant increases (a similar edge is there, 74% vs 61%). Thus far the Fox effort has stopped the freefall, possibly due positive critical buzz. It's worth noting Inhumans is still ahead of an average Agents of SHIELD episode from last season.

This kind of thing--low ratings for superhero shows this fall--has led to some speculation (whether it's serious or clickbait is up to you) that the superhero TV bubble has burst. This is overreaching by far and is due more to the mediocre offerings of the fall. The real test is when The Punisher, Runaways, and the heavy hitters from the CW drop.

I was not impressed by The New Mutants trailer. As a fan of the early run of the comic seeing what looks like a generic horror film was disappointing (an opinion shared by others). That said, it could just be an attempt to cash in on the audience for It, but if so, it doesn't really sell the movie to comic book fans. You could watch the trailer and have no idea it's about people with superpowers. The media is creating a false dichotomy wherein people who disliked the trailer are unwilling to accept anything other than a generic comic book movie (whatever that is). My issue, and I suspect the issue many others had, is that there's nothing distinctive about the trailer--nothing that separates it from any other horror film. This doesn't mean I've lost my interest in the movie, just that I think the trailer does a poor job selling it.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)