Marvel had a major presence at today's Netflix presentation for the TCA Summer Press Tour, despite mind-bogglingly and somewhat frustratingly still not having a standalone Marvel panel. Daredevil Season 1 showrunner Steven S. DeKnight and Marvel's Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg spoke to the press about their respective series, while Ted Sarandos, Netflix Chief Content Officer talked about larger plans for the Netflix MCU.
Sarandos talked about the MCU rollout plans, when Jessica Jones will premiere, and how often you can expect a Marvel/Netflix debut, while the showrunners shared some details about how much freedom Netflix and Marvel afford them on the creative end, how unique Jessica Jones is in the MCU, why Marvel wouldn't let DeKnight use the Night Nurse's original name, crossovers, spinoff possibilities, and more. Check out all the highlights below.
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- Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said that the plan is for a new Marvel series to debut roughly every six months. "And then, they will cross over and do a combined season [The Defenders] once we’ve launched the first season of each of the four characters. Some will selectively have multiple seasons, as they come out. The cadence of it, though, we believe, will probably be about two launches a year."
- In a post-panel interview (via IGN) Sarandos also commented on the possibility of The Punisher spinning off into his own series. “It is possible for sure. That’s the beauty of the Marvel universe.” He also added that any of the Netflix MCU characters "could spin out into films too.”
- What is De Knight's involvement in Daredevil Season 2? "I have two pom-poms and I wave them very frantically." However, he's made it clear to the new showrunners that he's always around if they have any questions, but everything he's heard is that production on Season 2 is going great.
- He reiterated that he had to leave the show due to a previous commitment to direct a feature film, but the series has passed into the hands of Marco Ramirez and Doug Petrie, both of whom were heavily involved in the production of the first season.
- DeKnight also noted that Marco was onboard the project even before he was, back when Drew Goddard was still attached.
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- What advice would DeKnight have for Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg? "Coffee. lots of coffee," he joked before concluding, "I couldn't tell her anything she doesn’t already know." Turns out Rosenberg already reached out for that advice, "I already grilled him when we were crossing paths in the writers' office."
- Rosenberg said the advantage Daredevil has over Jessica Jones is the title hero wears a mask, which means series star Charlie Cox doesn't have to do every single scene. Rosenberg explained, "The one thing where Steven has the advantage -- his show was called Daredevil, but Daredevil has an outfit. Charlie Cox can get a break once in a while. My show is called Jessica Jones. There is no mask. Krysten Ritter is the hardest working actress in the 'biz."
- Rosenberg emphasized how unique Jessica Jones is in the MCU, "Jessica Jones is a very different show than Daredevil. We exist in the cinematic universe. The mythology of the universe is connected, but they look very different. Tonally, they're very different. If you pick up Bendis's graphic novel, Alias, and you pick up Daredevil, they're wildly different."
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- Why was Rosenberg initially attracted to the project? “It all starts with Brian Michael Bendis’s Alias series,” Rosenberg said. “He created this incredibly flawed, damaged, interesting character -- regardless of gender. It was the character that drew me. He wasn’t afraid to go there and we went even further. We’ve gone further in all of our storytelling.”
- Just how much further? Rosenberg said, "We are pushing the edge really far" She doesn't know if the audience will respond, "but if I'm worrying about it, then I'm doing the right thing."
- The one time Marvel told DeKnight "no"? When he wanted to use the Night Nurse's actual name from the comics. Feel free to speculate about that, but here's what he said. "She was going to be an actual night nurse from the comics, but the feature side had plans for her down the road. That's the only time that I actually ran afoul of [something we couldn't do]. And we just used another name, so it's the same character." In a small post-panel interview DeKnight expanded, "All I know is that the original Night Nurse that we were talking about, we had her name in a script and it came back as possible that they were going to use it. They weren't sure at the time, and I'm not sure if they ever moved forward with that"
- Rosenberg noted that the showrunners do need to take care to respect the established Marvel mythology. "Where you run into limitations is if you are using one of their characters and you need to be cognizant of the mythology of that character." But that hasn't hampered creative freedom on Jessica Jones, "We're using some pretty obscure characters," said Rosenberg, "and we're taking them all over the place."
You can check out a compilation of those killer stuns in my video ranking, browse all our recent Daredevil coverage here, or catch up on all things Jessica Jones here.