The Defenders was supposed to be the equivalent of The Avengers for Netflix’s corner of the MCU but the so-so eight-part miniseries ended up being more of a Justice League. The reception to the series was so lacking, and the difficulty in bringing the cast together so great, that it looks like Marvel Television and the streaming service have decided not to pursue the option of doing a second season.
That’s obviously a big disappointment to the fans, as well as Daredevil star Charlie Cox. In an interview with Metro UK, the actor who brings Matt Murdock to life was quite honest about his feelings on what the first season of The Defenders got wrong, but made clear that he would nonetheless like to take a second stab at it and reunite with Jessica Jones‘ Krysten Ritter, Luke Cage‘s Mike Colter and Iron Fist‘s Finn Jones.
“I think what we discovered with The Defenders is that it was a lot to try and handle within eight episodes. To have these four people meet in an organic way and then set up a story, and then resolve it, and introduce a new villain all in eight episodes, became a lot. In a weird way, the first part of the season felt too slow because they wanted these people to meet organically and not just chuck them in a room in the first episode. But then, by the time that happened, we only had three episodes left.”
Cox hits perhaps the biggest problem with The Defenders on its head in his comments above. Despite being a trim eight-episodes long, the season was still paced like a regular 13-episode run and wasted a lot of valuable time in getting the foursome together, which meant that the actual meat and bones of the crossover got rushed. And when the main plot centered on a wild concept like excavating a dragon’s skeleton from underneath New York so the villains can regain immortality, then that’s really an issue.
But could The Defenders ever make a return? Well, quite recently, Marvel TV chief Jeph Loeb once again said that there were no plans right now for more, but did make the intriguing tease that a second second could happen with a whole new team of street-wise superheroes. That’d certainly be interesting to see, but we’re not so sure that Charlie Cox would be into that.
