Will Marvel launch four standalone superhero series onto Netflix in 2018?
The industry giant is about to notch up a rather impressive achievement later this year, when Thor: Ragnarok will become the third MCU instalment of 2017 – after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming, of course. But if Sacha Dhawan (Davos) is to be believed, Iron Fist season 2 will begin filming in December ahead of a possible premiere sometime next year. The same release window that Marvel has purportedly earmarked for new instalments of Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage.
It should be noted that Dhawan is simply making an estimation here, and when you consider that Marvel only announced plans for a second season at SDCC last weekend – replete with a new showrunner, but more on that later – the actor’s comments shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Per Screen Geek:
It’s definitely not been confirmed whether or not I’ll be in it, but they’re hopefully starting in December. You know with things always changing, Marvel are pretty good adapting to any kind of situation.
Behind the scenes, Marvel has appointed Raven Metzner (Elektra) in place of the outgoing Scott Buck, who had his hands full with ABC’s upcoming Inhumans series. Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel’s TV divisions and one of the key architects responsible for the thriving Netflix roster, touched base on that changeover during a separate interview with The Tracking Board, stating:
What happened, really very simply, was [Season 1 showrunner] Scott Buck was on [ABC Marvel series] Inhumans and we were delighted to get another order from Netflix and knew that Scott was not going to be available to us. We set out to find a new showrunner. Raven came in, told us a story and we thought, ‘that’s the next epic adventure for this character’ and got very excited about it.
Iron Fist season 2 is officially a go at Netflix, and if Sacha Dhawan’s estimation holds true, Marvel still has a few months to recruit some new talent to star opposite Finn Jons’ Danny Rand. The Defenders, meanwhile, is set to arrive on August 18th, and it’ll feature Matt Mudrock at his absolute lowest.