The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) has regained the rights to six Marvel Defenders series that it originally licensed to Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) prior to the launch of the Disney+ streaming service.
What Happened: Entertainment Weekly first reported that Netflix attached a note to each series that announced, “This show is available until March 1st.”
The six limited-edition series – “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “The Punisher,” “Iron Fist” and “The Defenders” – were created during the years of the now-defunct Marvel Television. Netflix began streaming the series starting in 2015, four years before Disney+ went live.
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What Happens Next: Netflix stopped producing episodes for these series in 2018 when Disney announced plans to produce original Marvel material for Disney+.
Disney did not announce its plans for the regained properties, which could either run on Disney+ or Hulu. However, it appears there are plans to reboot a few of the characters from these productions: Vincent D’Onofrio’s villainous Kingpin from Daredevil appeared in the Disney-Marvel series “Hawkeye” and Charlie Cox’s Daredevil character made an appearance in Sony Pictures’ (NYSE:SONY) “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
Cox seemed to confirm that Daredevil would be making a comeback, mentioning in a recent interview that “I know a little bit – not a huge amount, but a little bit.”
Photo: Charlie Cox as the title character in “Daredevil,” courtesy of Netflix
