When it was first announced that Marvel and Netflix were teaming up to create multiple streaming series in a plan that would, like the Avengers before them, create a new superhero team, fans got excited. However, the final product's reception was mixed at best. It sounds like Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos could say the same thing about working with Marvel.
The current Marvel series on Disney+, including Daredevil: Born Again which brought back actors from the original Netflix series, are produced by the same team at Marvel Studios that makes the MCU movies, but that wasn’t the case back then. Sarandos told Variety that Marvel’s TV team was more focused on money than quality, which led to conflicts between the two sides. He explained…
On our shows, we were dealing with the old Marvel television regime, which operated independently at Disney. And they were thrifty. And every time we wanted to make the shows bigger or better, we had to bang on them. Our incentives were not well aligned. We wanted to make great television; they wanted to make money. I thought we could make money with great television.
Ted Sarandos called the Netflix/Marvel deal the “biggest deal in the history of television,” and based purely on scope, it’s hard to disagree. Netflix agreed to produce five seasons of TV, four character-focused seasons based on Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and then a team-up season of Defenders. All that was done sight unseen, with no pilots or anything to really determine what everybody was getting into.
Netflix and Marvel would ultimately make 13 total seasons of television, which included The Punisher being tacked on, before the deal came to an end. While the early seasons were largely great, it’s difficult to argue that The Defenders wasn’t a disappointment, or that most of the seasons that followed it weren’t weaker than the ones that came before. Ted Sarantos very bluntly stated that any lack of greatness was due to Marvel’s unwillingness to spend more to make the shows better. He said…
You want to work with people whose incentives are aligned with yours. When people are producing for you, they’re trying to produce as cheaply as possible. My incentive is to make it as great as possible. That’s a lesson that I take forever. As producers, whatever [Marvel] didn’t spend, they kept. So every time we wanted to add something to the show to make it better, it was a fistfight.
Today, you'll need a Disney+ subscription to watch these shows. Marvel gained all the rights back in 2022, so everything left the streaming service. It's unclear if Netflix thinks it ultimately got its money's worth out of the deal.
Perhaps the different side of Marvel Studios working on Daredevil: Born Again is willing to spend the money, as it did greenlight two seasons out of the gate. Perhaps it’s something else. At least so far, it seems that Born Again is on par with the best of the Netflix/Marvel projects. With its success, maybe we’ll get to see more of the Defenders crew return, if Marvel's willing to spend the money, of course.
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