Tuesday night saw the debut of Marvel’s latest small-screen endeavour, the Hayley Atwell led Agent Carter, which was met by massive critical praise (and you can add my name to that pile of glowing reviews as well). That show isn’t sticking around for too long though as it’s merely a (very good) 7-episode stopgap until Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D returns to finish up the back half of its fantastic second season. Most folks thought though that once that concludes, we would all just be sitting around twiddling our thumbs/toes/[INSERT APPENDAGE OF CHOICE HERE] until Avengers: Age of Ultron got here in May.
But it seems that we’ll be getting our next Marvel fix a bit earlier as the studio has revealed that the now officially titled Marvel’s Daredevil, the first of four new “street level” superhero TV series that Marvel is producing with online streaming platform Netflix – all of which will lead to a Defenders crossover miniseries – will actually debut in a little over 3 months time on 10 April. And true to Netflix’s usual m.o. at 12:01 Pacific Time, the full 13-episode series will be made available all at once in all regions. The announcement was made along with a fancy new motion poster that you could say paints the town red.
There is a little bit of sort-of expected bad news though, as Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos has revealed to press at the Television Critics Association Press Tour (via Zap2It) that the planned four series – Daredevil, Jessica Jones (which is already in production), Luke Cage and Iron Fist – would each air “roughly a year apart”.
“We’re not trying to hit a fall programming schedule or hit a grid number. We want to give them enough room and enough time to make a great show. I don’t want to set up a rigid timetable.”
However, once that eventual team-up between these heroes happen in the 8-episode The Defenders mini-series in 2019 (yes, you read that right!) that probably won’t be the last we see of them on the telly.
“They’re all eligible to go into multiple seasons for sure, and contemplate that they will… [It depends on] how well we are addressing both the Marvel fanbase but also the broader fanbase who may or may not ever get into one of these series because of their own preconceived notions. One thing we have a really great history of is probably a combination of the personalized merchandising and the subscription model that allows people to be a little more adventurous about what they watch. We may find that an audience way broader than the typical Marvel audience will try and fall in love with these shows and with the Marvel brand, and it will be universe-expanding for Marvel too.”
That would probably also mean that we shouldn’t expect any of these heroes to be making the jump to the movie big leagues anytime soon, at least not until the whole Phase 3 wraps up with Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 & 2. So I guess I won’t get to see Iron Fist kung fu the hell out of Thanos. Darn it.
Marvel’s Daredevil sees Boardwalk Empire alum Charlie Cox taking on the role of the Man Without Fear, while Vincent D’Onofrio will be filling the very large role of the main villain Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin. Drew Goddard, who has penned everything from Cloverfield and Cabin in the Woods to Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was originally tapped for showrunner and he penned the first two episodes before he had to drop out to due to other commitments, and was replaced by Spartacus creator Steven S. DeKnight.
Here’s the show’s official synopsis along with a static poster version of that clip above.
Blinded as a young boy but imbued with extraordinary senses, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) fights against injustice by day as a lawyer, and by night as the Super Hero “Daredevil” in modern day Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. Produced by Marvel Television and ABC Studios, with executive producers Steven S. DeKnight (Spartacus), Jeph Loeb (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Drew Goddard (Cabin In The Woods), the series also stars Rosario Dawson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson.
PS: Now I know that officially Netflix is not supported locally, so you may be worried that we’re missing out on all these goodies, but that’s nothing some quick Unotelly VPN action can’t fix.
Last Updated: January 8, 2015
