It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks for the Powers That Be over at Marvel and Netflix.
Not only did the two companies launch Daredevil season 3 to much acclaim, but they also gave the axe to Iron Fist and, more recently, Luke Cage, confirming that Power Man won’t be back for a third season as was expected. And so, in the blink of an eye, Marvel’s Heroes for Hire lost their footing on the streaming platform, with Disney unlikely to continue the adventures of either of them on its soon-to-be-released digital service (read: Disney Plus).
Be that as it may, some new studies have been published this week which shed an interesting light on the popularity of both shows. Screen Rant’s teamed up with Parrot Analytics, “a data science company who measure online demand for different TV shows, assessing everything from global file-sharing and peer-to-peer traffic to social media posts,” to get to the bottom of things, and what they’ve found is certainly worth a look.
According to the company, at the time it was cancelled, the Luke Cage brand was 46% more popular than that of Iron Fist. Furthermore, the show did a lot better overseas than it did in North America, with Mike Colter’s hero finding himself the second most in-demand Marvel TV series in France and Germany (behind Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Over in the states, meanwhile, though Luke isn’t quite as popular, he still holds up fairly well, with the graph below showing us how popular the brand is on US soil.
So, if the show is still playing well with viewers, how come it was cancelled? That’s the million dollar question, though sources say Marvel and Netflix couldn’t agree on the direction of season 3. As Screen Rant notes, the streaming site wanted a 10-episode run rather than the 13-episode order that they originally agreed to. That, and the Mouse House’s new Disney Plus service no doubt contributed to the axe being brought down, as some people believe Netflix isn’t too interested in housing Marvel shows anymore now that Disney’s putting out a product that’ll be a direct competitor to them.
Regardless, 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 – but given everything that’s happened, and the fate that Iron Fist and Luke Cage have been met with, folks seem to think this corner of the MCU is quickly coming to an end. And you know what? They’re probably right.