It’s looking increasingly likely that The Defenders was a supercharged flash in the pan.
Marvel and Netflix’s ensemble series, which first aired in the summer of 2017, assembled the street-level heroes of Hell’s Kitchen (and Harlem!) for a plot involving The Hand, Midland Circle, and Sigourney Weaver’s thinly-drawn antagonist, Alexandra Reid, who rhymed off one clichéd line after another as she staked a claim for New York City.
But for all of the hype generated by The Defenders, the Netflix crossover struggled to retain much of an audience compared to its predecessors – namely Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist – and new comments made by Jessica Jones herself, Krysten Ritter, suggest that the show may have been a one-off, after all.
Well, I think Jessica was pretty well received. People were excited to see her again, so that made us happy because Jessica is the next up. Y’know, I had a great time doing The Defenders and honestly, it was such a good experience that I would even do it again. I don’t think we are doing it again. It was never intentioned to do it again, but, you know, if I was given another opportunity, I would.
Via Vulture, the actress went on to discuss the success of her own standalone series, and why she hopes Marvel’s private eye (and borderline alcoholic) remains a fixture of the Netflix roster for years to come.
My heart is with my show because of the subject matter and because of the great drama that we get to do and the personal issues that we explore. For me, that is more the type of content that I enjoy as a viewer and as a performer. My heart is in Jessica Jones, but I did have a great time doing The Defenders with the guys. We had a good time. It is what it is.
We are, at the time of writing, mere hours away from the second season of Marvel’s Jessica Jones. That’s a luxury The Defenders can’t afford, it seems, and it’s now nigh on certain that all four street-level heroes will remain locked to their respective series for the foreseeable future. And perhaps that’s not a bad thing?
