Netflix Boss Offers Iron Fist Status, Eyes Annual Limit for Marvel Releases
The fourth of Netflix’s originally announced Marvel standalone series is inching closer to reality.
Following his Sunday appearance at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos said that the casting of Iron Fist is “in progress.”
Otherwise known as Danny Rand, the supernaturally enhanced hero wields a mystical force known as the Iron Fist, which allows him to laser-focus his chi and, for example, briefly render his fist superhumanly powerful.
Marvel’s Iron Fist is the last of Netflix’s originally announced hero series to take shape, following Daredevil (which releases Season 2 on March 1
, Jessica Jones (which just scored a Season 2 pickup) and Luke Cage (starring Mike Colter). Sarandos was mum on TVLine’s report that upcoming Daredevil adversary The Punisher is due for his own spinoff.
Although a release date for Luke Cage has yet to be announced, it likely will be sometime this year, thus fulfilling what Sarandos sees as the ideal annual output for Marvel fare.
“It’s certainly possible” to release more than two in a year, he said, “but these [Marvel series] are produced on a scale of a major film. So there are long production times and long post times. And in some cases we have character crossovers, which makes it a little difficult to manage production. It’s not the goal to put out more than one or two a year.”
Marvel TV boss Jeph Loeb told Adweek at TCA that following Luke Cage‘s eventual debut, Iron Fist Season 1, Jessica Jones Season 2 or the team-up series The Defenders are among the candidates to be next in queue