Marvel fans were crushed when Netflix cleared out their stable of MCU TV shows earlier this year, prematurely curtailing all five series in the Defenders-verse due to corporate clashes with the House of Ideas. Since then, we’ve been praying that Marvel would bring the likes of Daredevil and Jessica Jones back by crossing them over into the movies, but we’ve had no official word on that to date. Until now, that is.
We Got This Covered has heard that Marvel has every intention of bringing the Defenders into the cinematic side of the MCU as soon as they can – so once Netflix’s lease on the characters runs out in a few years’ time. It’s unclear exactly how this will be achieved but the current thinking is that they’ll make use of the New York-based films to introduce them into the franchise. For example, Doctor Strange 2 and/or Spider-Man 3.
Our source informs us that this doesn’t mean we should expect to see the whole team appearing as one, though. The approach will be to put, say, Daredevil in one movie and Luke Cage in another. That being said, we’ve also heard that they could all show up together in the planned New Avengers film. But that’s a long, long ways off and for their initial appearances, it’ll just be one at a time most likely.
Previous intel has said that Marvel can’t use these characters again for at least two years after the release of the final season of the Netflix shows. So, seeing as Jessica Jones season 3 arrived last month, that would mean the rights officially revert back to Kevin Feige and co. in June 2021. Technically, Marvel apparently aren’t even allowed to think about what they’ll do with these characters until that time, but it’s clear that they’ve already got some ideas and with Daredevil in particular, we may already know what they’re planning.