| The Defenders | |
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| File:Defenders Netflix.jpg | |
| Genre | |
| Based on | |
| Developed by |
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| Starring | |
| Composer | John Paesano |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Production location | New York City |
| Cinematography | Matthew J. Lloyd[1] |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | Netflix |
| Related | |
| Marvel Cinematic Universe television series | |
Marvel's The Defenders, or simply The Defenders, is an upcoming American web television miniseries developed for Netflix by Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez, based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise and is the culmination of a series of interconnected shows from Marvel and Netflix. The miniseries is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios, with Ramirez serving as showrunner.
The limited series stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Mike Colter as Luke Cage, and Finn Jones as Danny Rand / Iron Fist, all reprising their roles from their individual series. Élodie Yung also stars as Elektra Natchios, reprising the role from Marvel's Daredevil. Development of the miniseries began in late 2013, with Cox the first actor cast in May 2014, and Jones the final of the title four cast in February 2016. Petrie and Ramirez joined as showrunners in April, after serving in the same role on the second season of Daredevil. However, Petrie left as showrunner at the start of filming in New York City in October 2016; filming concluded in March 2017.
The Defenders will consist of eight episodes, and is scheduled to be released August 18, 2017.
Set a few months after the events of the second season of Daredevil,[2] and a month after the events of the first season of Iron Fist,[3] the vigilantes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist team up in New York City to fight a common enemy: The Hand.[4]
Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance through an on-set photograph as NYPD Captain Irving Forbush, the same photograph seen in previous Marvel Netflix series.[15][16]
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TBA | S. J. Clarkson[17] | Unknown | August 18, 2017[18] |
| 2 | TBA | S. J. Clarkson[17] | Unknown | August 18, 2017[18] |
Uta Briesewitz will direct the fifth episode in the series.[1]
In October 2013, Deadline reported that Marvel was preparing four drama series and a miniseries, totaling 60 episodes, to present to video on demand services and cable providers, with Netflix, Amazon, and WGN America expressing interest.[19] A few weeks later, Marvel and Disney announced that Marvel Television and ABC Studios would provide Netflix with live action series centered around Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, leading up to a miniseries based on the Defenders.[20] In November 2015, Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief Joe Quesada stated there was no apprehension from Marvel in changing the line up of the Defenders from the "classic" original line-up (Doctor Strange, Hulk, Namor and Silver Surfer) to Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, "because to the world at large, no one knows who the Defenders are. So the idea of taking the concept and name and applying it to [the Marvel Cinematic Universe] feels wholly natural" adding that Marvel has "a wonderful concept" behind why the group would form in the MCU and why they would be called the Defenders.[21]
In April 2016, Marvel announced that Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez, the showrunners for the second season of Marvel's Daredevil, would serve as showrunners and executive producers on Marvel's The Defenders, with Daredevil creator Drew Goddard also serving as an executive producer on the miniseries.[22] In January 2015, Netflix COO Ted Sarandos had stated that the series was "eligible to go into multiple seasons for sure" and Netflix would look at "how well [they] are addressing both the Marvel fanbase but also the broader fanbase" in terms of determining if additional seasons would be appropriate.[23] However, in July 2016, Marvel Television head and executive producer Jeph Loeb referred to the miniseries as a one-off event rather than a season of an ongoing story. Loeb also confirmed that the miniseries would have eight episodes, and stated that Petrie and Ramirez would consult with Melissa Rosenberg, Cheo Hodari Coker, and Scott Buck—the showrunners of Marvel's Jessica Jones, Marvel's Luke Cage, and Marvel's Iron Fist, respectively—on how "their characters would react" to certain situations;[24] the other showrunners read each of the scripts for The Defenders and provided insight into each individual character's world.[25] On this collaboration, Petrie said of Rosenberg specifically that she was "wonderful because she's in this position of being a fellow artist and letting us do what we do, but at the same time loving her character and being protective of her character and wanting us to get it right and wanting to guide us and help up, but also let us be free." Rosenberg added that all of the showrunners for the other series "felt really included in the process."[26] Loeb compared this relationship to Joss Whedon's approach with the similar crossover in the MCU films, Marvel's The Avengers, for which Whedon "sought out all of the creative input from everybody that had worked on Iron Man and Hulk and Captain America and Thor, but he had to make The Avengers its own thing."[24]
At the start of filming in October 2016, Petrie left the series as co-showrunner. Loeb explained, "We got to a point where the scripts were done, and we wanted Marco to continue, and Doug pursued other avenues."[25]
One of the things early on that I found helpful was not to think about how many differences [the other series] have but to go the opposite way and think about how much they have in common ... there’s a recurring theme here with people who are orphans or people who don’t understand this urge but feel the need to do good and are constantly fighting inner turmoil and having that affect their personal lives ... We didn’t think about it in terms of how we’ll combine all the tones. We thought about the tone as its own thing. It’s about making sure this thing is something that could encapsulate all four worlds.
—Showrunner Marco Ramirez on combining elements from the individual series to craft the tone of The Defenders[27]
By late May 2016, Petrie and Ramirez had turned in a completed story for the miniseries,[28] based on a "very bare-bones structure" from Loeb.[25] The latter described the completed story as "epic", feeling that all the characters "have great roles ... where everyone feels like they’re telling more of their own ongoing tale."[28] The intention was for the miniseries to feel like "Daredevil season 2.5, a Luke Cage season 1.5, a Jessica Jones 1.5, and Iron Fist 1.5," telling "the story that came after their immediate seasons and before their next ones."[25] Loeb compared this dynamic to the Olympics, where "you get to know all of these athletes in their various sports all throughout their careers, and then once every four years they're going to get together and compete against each other."[24] Coker further compared the miniseries to the forming of the Wu-Tang Clan and Voltron.[29]
Petrie noted that the intent was not to stop any of the character arcs built in the previous series, rather each character is "just taking this incredible epic detour then going back into their own respective pools."[26] Goddard talked about the resulting genre for the miniseries, since each of the individual series were different from one another, feeling that bringing them all together created "its own genre".[30] Ramirez added that the series' tone was "one of the most challenging and most exciting parts of this project", and "has really just been about organically blending [the tones of the previous series] together so that it feels like they're all cohesive and all of a piece."[31] Ramirez and the series' writing team also wanted to ensure the project did not feel like "a corporate mandate", striving to make it "feel earned and real and grounded ... and also topical and important" as the individual series had done.[25]
Cautioning against the "easy comparison" to The Avengers, Loeb said the aim with The Defenders was to say, "'OK, how do we do that and how do we do it different?' We saw how the Avengers came together [and] it doesn’t quite go as smoothly as you’d like it to go."[32] He added, "The Defenders didn’t have a 'D' on their belt buckles and a Defenders Tower. We agreed from the very beginning that these folks could at the very end go, 'I never want to see your face again.'"[33] Loeb also noted that "the sky's not going to open up and aliens aren't going to come flying out of it. That's the Avengers' job, that's what they're supposed to do. The street level heroes always come from a very real place."[29] Regarding the antagonist, Ramirez said having the Defenders face an alien threat like the Avengers, for example, was "never an option", as the crossover was always going to be a street level New York story. This did prove challenging in choosing an antagonist though, as the four Defenders are shown to be "really powerful people" in their individual series, and the miniseries' villain had to prove a challenge for the four of them together.[31] To form the team-up, Ramirez stated that each Defender begins to investigate a mystery separately, with the four all converging on the same location after "following their own trail of bread crumbs". Ramirez added, "We wanted them all caught off guard [by seeing one another at the same location]. Once they're in that room together, it's kind of like, 'Oh, shit, who are you?'".[33]
At the end of May 2014, Charlie Cox was cast as Daredevil for Daredevil.[34] In December 2014, Krysten Ritter was cast as Jessica Jones and Mike Colter was cast as Luke Cage for Jessica Jones,[35][36] with Colter also headlining Luke Cage.[36] In February 2016, Finn Jones was reported to be cast as Danny Rand for Iron Fist,[37] with Marvel confirming his casting the following month. They also confirmed that Cox, Ritter, Colter, and Jones would all reprise their roles to star in The Defenders.[38][22] In March 2016, Élodie Yung, who portrays Elektra Natchios in Daredevil, expressed interest in appearing in The Defenders "on the bad side... that would be a good dynamic I think—to be confronted by these four superheroes";[39] Marvel confirmed Yung's involvement the following November.[40]
In April 2016, Eka Darville said that he would reprise his Jessica Jones role of Malcolm Ducasse in The Defenders.[10] In September, Simone Missick stated that she would be reprising the role of Misty Knight from Luke Cage in the miniseries.[7] In October, at New York Comic-Con, Sigourney Weaver was announced as playing the main antagonist of the miniseries,[41] later revealed to be Alexandra.[42] The producers had referred to the character as "a Sigourney Weaver type" for four months before Loeb contacted the actress about the project.[43] After production on the miniseries began at the end of that month, Marvel confirmed that Darville and Missick would appear,[11][8] alongside Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page,[8] Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth,[11] Scott Glenn as Stick, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple,[6] and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing,[9] all also reprising their roles from previous Marvel Netflix series. Jon Bernthal,[5] Wai Ching Ho,[12] and Ramón Rodríguez also reprise their roles as Frank Castle / Punisher, Gao, and Bakuto, respectively.[14] Marko Zaror also appears as Shaft.[13]
Stephanie Maslansky is the costume designer for The Defenders, after serving the same role for the previous Marvel Netflix series.[44] Maslansky noted, "we celebrated the differences, and the coming together of these four very distinct characters. For each character, there is definitely a color palette–Daredevil you think of the reds, Jessica Jones shades of navies and lavender, Iron Fist you think of the olive green family and with Luke Cage it's the golds, the Harlem colors. We utilized those palettes, and that gave us the distinction."[45] For Alexandra, Maslansky wanted "a lot of depth to her wardrobe" that was "grounded in an older world. Maybe very, in a way, European. More of a global feeling to her wardrobe, very lush... her wardrobe reflects that kind of ancientness."[46]
Marvel announced in February 2014 that the series would be filmed in New York City,[47] with Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief Joe Quesada stating in April that the show would be filming in areas of Brooklyn and Long Island City that still look like the old Hell’s Kitchen, in addition to sound stage work.[48] In April 2016, Cox confirmed a late 2016 start for filming,[49] following the conclusion of production on Iron Fist in October 2016.[50][51][41] The Defenders began filming on October 31, 2016,[52][53] under the working title Group Therapy.[54] Additional filming took place in the Stapleton neighborhood on Staten Island.[55] Ritter revealed that the series would be filming back-to-back with the second season of Jessica Jones, adding there was the potential to overlap the two productions.[56] Filming wrapped on March 19, 2017.[57]
In February 2017, John Paesano was announced as the composer for the miniseries, after previously composing the first two seasons of Daredevil.[58]
The Defenders is the final miniseries of the ordered Netflix series, after Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist.[50][51] In August 2014, Vincent D'Onofrio, Wilson Fisk in Daredevil, stated that after the "series stuff with Netflix", Marvel has "a bigger plan to branch out".[59] In March 2015, Loeb spoke on the ability for the series to crossover with the MCU films and the ABC television series, saying, "It all exists in the same universe. As it is now, in the same way that our films started out as self-contained and then by the time we got to The Avengers, it became more practical for Captain America to do a little crossover into Thor 2 and for Bruce Banner to appear at the end of Iron Man 3. We have to earn that. The audience needs to understand who all of these characters are and what the world is before you then start co-mingling in terms of where it's going."[60]
The four Defenders all initially meet at the offices of Midland Circle, which was previously mentioned in the second season of Daredevil and the first season of Iron Fist.[33][61]
The Defenders is scheduled to be released on August 18, 2017, on the streaming service Netflix, worldwide,[18] in Ultra HD 4K and high dynamic range.[62] The eight, hour-long episodes will be released simultaneously, as opposed to a serialized format, to encourage binge-watching, a format which has been successful for other Netflix series.[47][48][24]
At San Diego Comic-Con International 2016, a teaser trailer was shown featuring the word "Defend" forming from pieces of the logos from the four previous series over "the ominous shape of a giant hand", along with Glenn providing a voice over as Stick, asking how the four heroes plan to save New York when they cannot save themselves.[63] For New York Comic Con later that year, the four Defenders' actors appeared together on stage, along with Weaver, to promote the miniseries.[41]
In April 2017, the release date for the series was revealed via a teaser trailer designed to look like security footage showing the four Defenders inside a Midland Circle elevator. The teaser also featured a hidden URL which led to a faux website for the New York Bulletin featuring "plenty of easter eggs and little details waiting to be discovered"; the bottom of the faux website also confirmed the miniseries' release date.[64] Dave Lewis of the Los Angeles Times felt having the security footage teaser end on the timecode 08:18:20:17, was "a fun way to indicate the show's release date".[65] A month later, Netflix and Marvel released an official trailer for the miniseries.[66] They also released multiple motion graphics showcasing various character crossovers through the social media accounts for The Defenders as well as each of the individual series. Nicole Sobon of Comic Book Resources felt releasing each of the graphics this way was "a smart marketing move by both Marvel and Netflix, as over the course of the years, the Twitter accounts [for each series] have managed to drive in plenty of fan interaction by their 'conversations' between the characters."[67] Cox, Ritter, Colter, Jones, and additional stars of the miniseries appeared at San Diego Comic-Con International 2017 to promote the series,[68] where the first episode was also screened.[69]
