This month has seen the shock cancellation of not just one Marvel show, but two. Specifically, Iron Fist and Luke Cage were axed by Netflix after just two seasons a piece. The reasons for the cancellations weren’t revealed, but some new stats suggest that the shows’ fates were sealed by a precipitous ratings drop.
ScreenRant contacted analytics company Jumpshot, whose “anonymized global panel tracks five billion actions a day across 100 million devices to deliver insights into online consumer behavior,” and discovered that both series lost roughly 60% of their viewers between seasons 1 and 2. Iron Fist dropped by 64% while Luke Cage didn’t fare much better at 59%.
If Jumpshot’s figures are on the money here, then it’s easy to see why Netflix pulled the plug on both shows. As for why viewers left in their droves, you probably blame the bumpy quality of the series’ first seasons for that. Iron Fist season 1 was ripped apart by critics and fans, though season 2 was ironically a huge improvement. Luke Cage season 1, meanwhile, was warmly received at first but it really dropped the ball in its second half. Again, this issue was fixed for its sophomore run, but it was too little too late.
Curiously, a previous story declared that there was a separate reason for Luke Cage‘s cancellation. The Hollywood Reporter claimed that a breakdown in negotiations between Marvel and Netflix was the cause of the Hero of Harlem losing his solo vehicle as the two studios had – here we go again – “creative differences.” Perhaps the ratings were a contributing factor in the decision to cancel the shows, but the issues between the companies was the final straw.
Though Iron Fist and Luke Cage are over, at the time of writing, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and The Punisher are still going strong – the third and second seasons of the latter two have already been filmed, in fact. And, who knows, perhaps Power Man and Danny Rand will live on in some form. A Heroes for Hire spinoff, maybe? We live in hope.
