With ‘Punisher’ and ‘Jessica Jones’ Canceled, Is There a Future for Marvel’s Netflix Heroes?

It’s officially the end of an era. After axing Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Daredevil last fall, Netflix finally pulled the trigger and took out the last two Marvel shows standing. Jessica Jones and The Punisher are canceled. After almost four years and 12 seasons (soon to be 13, once Jessica Jones releases its third and final one), the lights have gone out on Netflix’s corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But why? There’s still a devoted fanbase for these characters, even if some latter seasons haven’t always lived up to the hype. Even so, Daredevil Season 3 was acclaimed and popular, and all of the recent season finales ended on cliffhangers. There are more stories to tell, but will they be told?

Before we get to what lies ahead for The Defenders (and Punisher), let’s answer the big question:

Why is Netflix canceling Marvel shows?

It’s all about competition. The gist is that since the Marvel/Netflix deal was first announced around five years ago, the relationship between the streaming giant and Marvel’s parent company Disney has evolved greatly–and not exactly in a friendly way. Of course publicly, Marvel and Netflix are totally friendly towards each other and playing nice. It’s just that behind-the-scenes sources and speculation about what’s going on paint a different picture. Disney’s gone from having an exclusive relationship with Netflix which granted the streamer dibs on all of their theatrical releases (that’s why you’ve been able to stream the most recent Marvel and Star Wars and live-action fairy tales on Netflix for the past couple years) to developing their own streaming service. Disney+ is coming soon and it’s angling to be a direct competitor with Netflix. That means all those Disney movies are leaving Netflix as soon as each title’s window of availability (roughly 18 months) closes.

But the relationship between Marvel/Disney and Netflix is just a little more complicated than that. Netflix has known Disney+ was coming for a while, but they didn’t cancel all the shows immediately. They ordered Season 3 of Jessica Jones and the Luke Cage writing staff started churning out ideas for a third season ahead of getting the green light. It looks like Netflix thought they could play along with Disney+ as long as they were just going to be a streaming home for Disney movies and maybe a Star Wars show or two. And then news was leaked that Disney was going to make TV shows starring Marvel movie stars like Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen as their super alter-egos. Looking at the timeline, it looks like Netflix got confirmation that Disney+ was gonna do shows with the movie stars, thus making their TV heroes look like, well, TV heroes. Why would Netflix, a massive company in its own right, want to play back-up to a competitor?

There have also been reports that negotiations broke down between Marvel and Netflix regarding money, which likely factored into Netflix’s decision. It reportedly costs a lot for Netflix to license Marvel IP, and that was a price worth paying five years ago when Netflix’s original content slate was small and they wanted to make a big, Disney-enabled splash. Fast-forward a few years and the buzz has cooled a bit on all of the Marvel shows, Netflix has hit originals like Stranger Things, and Disney’s launching a direct competitor. Reportedly, all of Netflix’s angling to get the cost down didn’t fly with Disney. Is it possible that all of the Netflix shows could have continued if Disney agreed to shorter seasons or a lower production budget? Maybe? Would Netflix have still wanted to placate a direct competitor by keeping their IP alive and streaming? Maybe, maybe not? We’ll never know.

Where do these Marvel heroes go from here?

Jeph Loeb, the head of Marvel Television, alluded to a continuation in a letter to the fans posted on Marvel’s website. Quoting Daredevil’s father, Loeb said “the measure of a man is not how he gets knocked to the mat, it’s how he gets back up.” In general when talking about the future of the Netflix shows, Loeb comes across as cautiously optimistic; that’s definitely the tone he took in our own one-on-one with him. But what does all this mean? Is this just Loeb saying something to keep Marvel fans invested, even if it means dangling the false hope of Luke Cage Season 3 in front of them for years? It might be.

But it might not all be false hope. Since last fall when I first theorized about a future for these shows, one major thing has happened: Marvel Television has announced a slate of shows produced exclusively for Hulu. The shows, all adult animation series starring some truly Z-list Marvel characters like Hit-Monkey and M.O.D.O.K., will even culminate in a team-up special called The Offenders. Get it? Defenders, Offenders? So, does this mean that Daredevil and pals will eventually end up on Hulu? I used to think “no way,” now I think “maybe way.”

Here’s what’s changed. When Disney’s acquisition of Fox goes through, Disney will own 2/3rds of Hulu. That makes the streaming service Disney’s new de facto home away from Netflix. It’s been theorized that Hulu will house all of the more mature-rated movies and shows, think the FX catalogue and Deadpool movies, that don’t fit onto Disney+’s all-ages vibe. Additionally, last fall we didn’t know what the future of Marvel Television would be. All of the original shows being developed for Disney+ are coming from Marvel Studios, which is totally different from Marvel Television. Now we know that Marvel Television, which also brought us all the Defenders shows, is making original content for Hulu. So, with Disney owning a majority of Hulu, with Hulu acting as the home for more mature-rated super-stuff, and with Marvel TV producing content for Hulu, it suddenly seems like Hulu’s a natural fit for these hard-drinking, hard-fighting heroes. Plus, Hulu doesn’t really have anything to lose by bringing in these street-level heroes. In a way, Hulu in 2019 is a lot like Netflix in 2014; Hulu’s trying hard to up their original series cred, and that’s mostly paid off thanks to The Handmaid’s Tale. But you can’t say that their current Marvel show, Marvel’s Runaways, has had the same kind of cultural penetration as any of Netflix’s Marvel heroes. Getting the old Netflix slate might boost Hulu’s profile (just imagine the headlines!).

There is, of course, a catch. It was reported back in December that all of the Netflix shows essentially have a non-compete clause, meaning the characters can’t appear in any non-Netflix movies or TV shows for two years after cancellation. That means the earliest we could see any of these shows would be October 2020, when Iron Fist and Luke Cage would finally be available to jump to a non-Netflix network. Daredevil would follow in November 2020, and Punisher and Jessica Jones in February 2021. And who knows what the streaming landscape will look like by then! The return of these characters depends on a lot of variables, namely fan interest still being there, the availability and interest of all of these actors, and a streaming service–Hulu or Disney+–finding the addition of these canceled Netflix shows a plus. Only time will tell. For now, we have Jessica Jones Season 3 to wait for.

Stream Marvel's Jessica Jones on Netflix