Right now, Marvel is pretty hot with the last Captain America: Civil War movie, which was topped this weekend by X-Men Apocalypse, another Marvel movie. In addition to Marvel ruling the movie house, the Cinematic Universe extends to television on Netflix with Daredevil and Jessica Jones. In addition to these critically acclaimed shows, there will be three more offerings with Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher, and then all four (possibly five with The Punisher) with The Defenders. This is what we know about the Marvel Netflix shows including their release dates and plans for the future.
According to Ubergizmo, Daredevil Season 2's showrunners Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez have left the show in order to work on The Defenders. We know that The Defenders is going to start filming this year, and it will probably be released in 2017.
So far, there has been a new Marvel Netflix show every six months, with the first season of Daredevil in Spring 2015, then Jessica Jones last Fall. Daredevil Season 2 appeared last March, and now Luke Cage is planning to hit Netflix on September 30th.
A recent report from Dark Horizons states that the action of Luke Cage will focus primarily in Harlem, and a recent photo confirmed that presence of a villain known as Diamondback (aka Willis Stryker, played by Erik LaRay Harvey). Luke Cage (Mike Colter) was given a proper introduction on Jessica Jones, which might not return until before or after The Defenders.
Luke Cage will also have to deal with Mahershala Ali as Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes, a Harlem nightclub owner who will threaten the neighborhood, along with Theo Rossi, who will play shades. That is a lot of enemies, which still makes fans wonder what the enemy The Defenders will have to face.
Of course, in between Luke Cage and The Defenders is Iron Fist. There hasn't been much news on that front in the past week, but it looks like that won't show up until 2017, probably sometime in March if Netflix and Marvel are following this trend. So far, the cast has been sealed, and so has the showrunner, and it is most likely to be filming at this point. Perhaps Marvel could up this trend with a show every three months.
The one show that hasn't been receiving any news, other than its confirmation is The Punisher. This character was given more than a proper introduction in Daredevil Season 2, and there was enough open-ended ending for Frank Castle (Punisher's real name, played by Jon Bernthal) so he could continue is one-man war on crime.
Originally, the four were going to be put together for The Defenders, but The Punisher was a wild card. This worked for The Avengers, and it will be quite a hit when it finally airs, which will hopefully be before the end of 2017.
