Marvel’s Moon Knight and She-Hulk shows can give Marvel Studios its own version of The Defenders. All of Netflix’s Marvel shows are now over, and while it may be a while before fans see Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, or Jessica Jones on the small screen, Marvel may not need any of them for a new team-up series or another attempt at The Defenders.
The era of Marvel Television is nearing an end. All five Netflix shows and Cloak & Dagger have been cancelled, and Ghost Rider was scrapped before it could even go into production. Agents of SHIELD is ending after its seventh season. At this point, it looks like Disney+ will eventually become the home of all Marvel TV shows. So far, it already has eight TV shows in the works.
At Disney’s D23 Expo, Marvel Studios officially confirmed that She-Hulk and Moon Knight TV shows were in development. Both shows will stream on Disney+, presumably in 2022. Lead actors for She-Hulk and Moon Knight have yet to be cast. Both are highly popular characters whom audiences have been waiting to see in the MCU for years. Marvel and Disney will finally make that happen with their upcoming streaming service. What Marvel has planned for the two superheroes outside of their standalone shows hasn’t been revealed, but Marvel could have more content planned, such as a new Defenders series.
Marvel Can’t Use The Defenders For A While
Back in 2013, Marvel and Netflix partnered together to produce live-action shows connected to the MCU. Marvel’s deal with Netflix encompassed four standalone TV shows: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. After all four shows had at least one season under theirs belts each, the protagonists came together for a team-up in the eight episode miniseries, The Defenders, loosely based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name. Most of the shows were hits, but surprisingly Netflix gradually cancelled them until they were all gone, including its newest series, The Punisher.
Though Marvel is moving on from its deal with Netflix and looking toward Disney+ for the future of its TV shows, this doesn’t mean Marvel is planning on giving a new home to Daredevil and the others at any point in the near future. It’s been reported that Disney can’t begin work on any series featuring these characters for two years after the cancellations of their respective shows. This means that Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Punisher, Iron Fist, and presumably all the characters who appeared alongside them have been moved to the backburner for the time being.
Moon Knight & She-Hulk Fill The Roles Of Daredevil & Jessica Jones
Daredevil and Jessica Jones were both highly successful shows on Netflix, with Daredevil in particular making a waves when it was first released. The popularity of these shows is something that Marvel Studios would love to match – or even surpass – with its own original content. It’s possible that in 2022 Marvel Studios will have two shows that will remind viewers of Daredevil and Jessica Jones.
In the comic books, the stories of Jessica Jones and She-Hulk strike feminist tones and involve incredibly strong female characters with everyday jobs that end up involving the use of their superpowers. Both characters are also heavily flawed heroines with anger issues. She-Hulk has just enough in common with Jessica Jones for her show to feel similar to the Netflix series and the struggles of its own protagonist. Parallels can be drawn between She-Hulk and Daredevil as well, especially when it comes to the legal elements and of their stories. Both do most of their work in the courtroom, but on opposite sides. Jennifer Walters is a prosecutor, while Matt Murdock is a defense attorney.
Moon Knight and Daredevil aren’t so different either. Each are skilled martial artists who are forced to hide their true identities. Both have civilian lives in the daytime and costumed personas that they embrace at night. While Daredevil is a blind lawyer who no one would normally suspect is actually a vigilante, Moon Knight hides his identity with multiple alter egos. Furthermore, Moon Knight and Daredevil operate in worlds that feel interchangeable in a certain way. The two characters spend most of their superhero careers fighting in the streets against gangsters, drug dealers, murderers, and more. As both exist in dark, crime-infested worlds, Disney+’s Moon Knight is the closest thing fans will get to a new Daredevil.
How A Marvel Studios “Defenders” Would Be Different To Netflix’s
After She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and possibly more receive the solo treatment on Disney+, the new streaming platform can unite them in a new Defenders show. Like the Netflix version, the Disney+ take on the classic superhero team can focus on street-level characters in a grounded setting, as opposed to the epic team-ups of The Avengers movies, which deal with gods, alien invasions, and robots.
Aside from the team roster, perhaps the most obvious difference between them would be the tone and the feel of the show. Netflix’s Marvel shows had TV-MA ratings, which meant they could include F-bombs, heavy amounts of profanity and obscene language, sexual content, and graphic violence. None of these things should be expected to have a presence in Marvel’s Disney+ shows, and the same would of course apply to The Defenders. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, everything made directly by Marvel Studios has been PG-13, and all of their films have found some measure of success, both critically and commercially. Also, while it could be argued that Moon Knight, being such a dark character, could benefit from more adult-themed content, Batman serves an example of what Marvel can do with the Crescent Crusader and other street-level heroes. Batman films typically work well with PG-13 ratings, and The Defenders can head in the same direction.
Also, being under the control of Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios can only be good for a new Defenders. The original Defenders was such a disappointment that it was blamed for killing Marvel’s Netflix shows. It’s hard to imagine a show overseen by the architect of a $26 billion cinematic universe doing any worse than the Netflix series. So with Marvel Studios in charge, a new Defenders at Disney+ stands a good chance at being a huge success.
More: Marvel TV Characters Who Can Now Join The MCU Proper
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