As you no doubt know, Netflix’s Daredevil has been cancelled. Typically, the cancellation of a much loved and critically acclaimed show that’s just aired its best season to date would be a shock, but if we’re being completely honest here, the writing had been on the wall ever since Iron Fist and Luke Cage were axed. Still, it’ll surely dismay fans, who’d been so fearful of this particular outcome that they were even campaigning for the show to receive a fourth season long before the news arrived.
Of course, it’s pretty easy to figure out what’s going on between Netflix and Marvel. Disney’s about to launch Disney Plus, their own streaming service which will put them into direct competition with Netflix. This means that the partnership between the two companies would essentially put one arm of the Disney corporation in direct competition against another, which is an untenable position.
As such, it’s perhaps not too surprising to hear now that it was actually Marvel’s decision to cancel Daredevil, and not Netflix’s. At least, that’s according to Steve Weintraub of Collider, who tweeted the following:
More info I’ve been sitting on. Since I can’t second source this I’ll post this as a “rumor” for now. @Daredevil wasn’t a @netflix cancellation. @Marvel did it. I loved season 3 and was all in for a season 4. Disappointing it won’t happen.
Though he does note that it’s just a rumor, this isn’t hard to believe given what we just explained. And what’ll sting most for fans is perhaps the fact that the showrunners were already developing a fourth season, to the point of finalizing the writing schedule for it. It was apparently going to be pretty awesome, too.
And as for the rest of Marvel’s Netflix shows? Well, we’re still going to see another season of The Punisher and Jessica Jones, but Daredevil writer Tamara Becher-Wilkinson says that the writing’s on the wall:
“If I was a betting woman, you know, my guess is that it’s the end of the Marvel universe on Netflix.”
Honestly, we’d have to agree with her here. But what do you think? Is this the end of the Marvel/Netflix universe? Feel free to chime in below.