Marvel’s Cancelled Netflix Shows May Find New Life on Hulu
The past few months have been pretty rough for Marvel on Netflix, as multiple series were cancelled in the span of half of a year. This was a clear casualty in changing corporate policy, as Disney shift their focus away from their future competitor in the streaming wars in favor of developing new content for the services that they own.
Few caught notice of the winds of change when Iron Fist, which is consistently considered the weakest of the six Netflix shows, was hit with cancellation. Some suspicions were raised when Luke Cage, a series held in much better regard, was cancelled the same night that the third season of Daredevil arrived, even with the dreaded “creative differences” excuse being used. But it was really the cancellation of Daredevil, which is the most consistently-popular Marvel show on Netflix and the most well-reviewed, that made it clear that there was trouble in paradise at Netflix. And while The Punisher and Jessica Jones haven’t been cancelled just yet, Deadline mentioned in their piece about Marvel’s animated plans for Hulu that they’re not expected to be renewed. It truly is the end of an era, one that produced six shows in a mere four years.
But there’s a silver lining: any of the Netflix series that have been cancelled (or never renewed at all, in the case of The Defenders) may see additional life on Hulu. According to The Wrap, Craig Erwich (Hulu’s senior vice president for original content) has a great working relationship with Marvel Entertainment (who have produced every single Marvel Cinematic Universe show, and will carry that distinction until Marvel Studios develop their own television shows for Disney+). In Erwich’s own words:
“Marvel has a ton of titles we’d be interested in. It kind of just depends on when they’re ready, [and] who, most importantly, is going to be behind these things.”
And if The Wrap is to be believed, that includes franchises that Netflix previously worked with. So yeah, Hulu could see the return of the characters established on Netflix, along with much of the same talent behind those series.
The partnership with Hulu only makes sense. Disney has a 30% stake in the streaming service right now, and they will have a 60% stake in once they have completed their acquisition of Fox. Since the forthcoming Disney+ is being dubbed as the “family-friendly” streaming service for the entertainment giant, Hulu will be used as a means to host content that is decidedly not family-friendly, both across Disney’s established library and the library that they’ll inherit from Fox (especially the latter).
There’s a catch to this, though. The contracts with Netflix, as they are currently written, suggest that fans will have to wait until 2020 to see the likes of Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Daredevil revert to Marvel (in that order), with the Punisher and Jessica Jones being freed as soon as 2021 if both shows are officially cancelled by Netflix this year. Even still, that’s not even getting to the amount of development time that would be necessary for Hulu to officially greenlight and fully develop new seasons of the shows. 2021 would probably be the absolute earliest that we could see any of these characters return. Even then, that’s all provided that Marvel Studios themselves aren’t interested in reimagining these characters to fit their movies or the Disney+ shows. For all we know, they may be interested in giving the likes of Iron Fist a hard reboot to be more in-line with the Shang Chi movie that they’re working on. (They’ll figure a clever method to fix continuity issues along the way.) Marvel Studios has way more clout over Disney than Marvel Entertainment, after all.
For now, Marvel fans can catch existing seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher all on Netflix. Meanwhile, Hulu is likely to renew Marvel’s Runaways for a third season, with potentially more live-action content down the road. On the animated front, Hulu have just announced plans to develop M.O.D.O.K., Hit-Monkey, Tigra & Dazzler, Howard the Duck, and The Offenders.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
