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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is huge, huge enough to fill a Top 50 Characters list with all killer and no filler. One corner of that universe, a corner that’s steadily and stealthily expanding every year, is Netflix’s lineup of street-level Marvel hero shows. With the debut of Marvel’s Daredevil in 2015, the franchise-within-a-franchise has expanded to include Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher. Three years after Matt Murdock got into his first hallway fight, Netflix’s Marvel partnership has resulted in 112 episodes of television–and they’re not slowing down.
If anything, Netflix and Marvel are speeding up production! They’ve gone from releasing two seasons of TV a year to three, and added the gritty crime drama Punisher to the lineup. But now that Netflix is juggling five-ish Marvel series at once, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of which hero is suiting up for a fight and which one is laying low.
That’s why I’m presenting this schedule of Netflix’s Marvel slate, arranged in what I assume will be their release order. To predict these dates, I’ve gone through and tracked when every single season of every Netflix/Marvel show began production, wrapped filming, and debuted on Netflix. I’ve even tracked how long it’s taken Netflix to renew these shows among other date-based facts. I’m like Foggy Nelson here, putting together an airtight case (you all know he’s the better lawyer!).
Wondering when we’ll see Daredevil again, or if the Defenders will ever reunite? Read ahead–and FYI, I’ll make sure to update this post as more information about these bajillion seasons is revealed.
'Daredevil' Season 3
STATUS: In Post-Production
The next hero in Netflix’s marvelous rotation is most likely the one that started it all: Daredevil. When last we saw the man without fear it was in the 2017 mini-series The Defenders. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) was left broken and near dead after sacrificing himself to save New York City from the Hand. But divine intervention in the form of some nuns (including his mother!) pulled him back from the brink, nursing him back to health.
It’s likely that Daredevil’s next in line because filming began on Season 3 in November 2017, before any of the other seasons on this list. Production lasted until late May 2018, meaning Daredevil Season 3 is well on its way to being unleashed. Precedent pegs sometime in October as a possible release date, since an average of 156 days pass between a Marvel series wrapping production and debuting on Netflix. But because of an issue I’ll discuss in the next entry, I’m going to wager we’ll see it just a little earlier than that.
POSSIBLE RELEASE: September 2018
'Iron Fist' Season 2
STATUS: In Post-Production
Iron Fist Season 2 will probably see the greatest between-season change of any Netflix/Marvel show. Since Iron Fist Season 1 dropped in March 2017, we’ve watched Danny Rand (Finn Jones) come into his own as a superhero (kinda), businessman (sorta), and as Luke Cage’s crimefighting partner (okay, that one is definitely accurate). Season 2 will have a different showrunner (Raven Metzner), and Alice Eve has joined the cast in an undisclosed role. On top of that, we’ll get more Daughters of the Dragon action when Simon Missick guest stars as Misty Knight for an episode (or potentially more).
Predicting when Iron Fist Season 2 will arrive is tricky, though, because both this season and DD Season 3 wrapped production in May 2018. With both shows ready to go, it’s kind of a toss-up as to which will debut first. Another wrinkle is the rumor that Iron Fist Season 2 will be a shorter season than usual, clocking in potentially at 10 episodes as opposed to 13. That would explain why this season started production a month after and wrapped a few weeks before Daredevil Season 3.
So, assuming that Marvel/Netflix will stick with the every-three-months schedule they’ve more or less stuck to starting with The Defenders in 2017, we can assume that Iron Fist will come out just a few months after Daredevil.
POSSIBLE RELEASE: December 2018
UPDATE (7/17/18, 12:52 p.m. ET): Ahead of Iron Fist’s panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego, a massive banner teasing Season 2 has been spotted with the date listed as “2018.” That seems to indicate that we’ll actually get Iron Fist Season 2 before Daredevil Season 3.
UPDATE (7/19/18, 9:26 p.m. ET): Netflix has announced that season 2 of Marvel’s Iron Fist will arrive on the streaming service on September 7.
UPDATE (7/19/18, 10:00 p.m. ET): Netflix has released the first trailer for Marvel’s Iron Fist Season 2.
'The Punisher' Season 2
STATUS: Currently Filming
Season 2 of Marvel’s The Punisher will most likely see Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) square off against one of his greatest threats, Jigsaw. And, adding to the bottleneck of MCU shows, production on Punisher Season 2 started a few months after production on the new seasons of Daredevil and Iron Fist. Punisher has been filming in New York since March 2018 and is expected to wrap later this summer, presumably in August.
Still, Iron Fist and Daredevil have enough of a head start, production-wise, to assume they’ll hit well before The Punisher’s next killspree.
POSSIBLE RELEASE: March 2019
'Jessica Jones' Season 3
STATUS: Currently Filming
Jessica Jones’ sophomore outing leapt onto Netflix earlier this year on International Women’s Day. When last we left Jess, she was mourning not only her dead, slightly deranged birth mother, but also the dissolution of her friendship with Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor). Trish will need some mentoring, though, as it looks like she’s inching closer to her super-powered comic book counterpart Hellcat.
As has been the case with the more recent Netflix/Marvel shows, production began on Season 3 of Jessica Jones relatively quickly after it was ordered (around 76 days, to be exact-ish). Production began on JJ Season 3 in late June, with series lead Krysten Ritter expected to direct an episode.
If everything goes more or less as it usually does with these shows, production will wrap on Jessica Jones Season 3 around December 2018. An average of 156 days pass from production wrapping and a new season hitting Netflix, which puts us in the May 2019 range. But considering that three-ish months tend to pass between Marvel seasons lately, I think it’s safe to bump that back to June.
POSSIBLE RELEASE: June 2019
'Luke Cage' Season 3
STATUS: On Hiatus
Luke Cage Season 2 is the latest batch of Marvel episodes to land on Netflix, putting it near the end of the rotation. And after seeing how Season 2 ends, you definitely want to see how Season 3 shakes out.
The major hiccup here is that Netflix hasn’t announced Luke Cage Season 3 yet. But have no fear, because this is totally normal. Lately (as in from Punisher onwards), it’s taken Netflix an average of 30 days to announce a follow-up season for Marvel shows. That means we might not get the go-ahead on Luke Cage Season 3 until late July.
From there, it’s possible that Cage 3 could shoot from October 2018 to April 2019, with its release date coming the standard 156 days later. Fittingly, that just so happens to be around 3 months after when I’m guessing Jessica Jones Season 3 will drop (see above). This is working out!
POSSIBLE RELEASE: September 2019
'The Defenders' Season 2
STATUS: TBD
After five seasons of TV spread across four different TV shows, Netflix’s vigilantes teamed up for Marvel’s The Defenders in August 2017. The 8-part mini-series united the casts of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist and irrevocably shifted the course of Marvel’s Manhattan. It left Daredevil defeated, it elevated Iron Fist to Manhattan’s protector, it united Misty Knight and Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) for the first time, it dragged Jessica Jones into the superhero spotlight, and it introduced Luke Cage to Danny Rand. It was a big story that’s impact is still being felt in the follow-up seasons.
But unlike Elektra, this show ain’t gonna return from the grave. Marvel TV head and Defenders EP Jeph Loeb has maintained from the start that this series was intended to be an event rather than another ongoing show. That’s what he said in July 2016, a year before the show debuted, and that’s what he’s saying this summer, a year after it hit.
Still, just because Matt, Jess, Danny, and Luke aren’t getting the band back together anytime soon doesn’t mean there’s not potential for crossover. After all, we saw Iron Fist drop in for an episode of Luke Cage. There’s always a possibility that more one-off crossover eps like that could happen in the future–although this is just me throwing that wish out into the universe.
POSSIBLE RELEASE: Don’t count on it.
