We all know the history of Marvel’s programs over at Netflix. Back in 2013, Netflix announced a giant deal with the company that revealed Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage and Iron Fist would all be getting their own shows, along with a Defenders miniseries. There have been some tweaks to the original plan in the time since, but this week we learned that Netflix wasn’t the original destination for Jessica Jones at all. Jessica Jones nearly went in a very different direction when the project was being developed back in 2010 for a very different network: ABC.
At the time, AKA Jessica Jones was the first Marvel project in contention over at ABC, getting a development deal in the time before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was even an idea, much less an actualized TV program. At AOL’s Build Series this week, Jessica Jones executive producer Melissa Rosenberg announced she was developing the series back when ABC was interested, according to Tech Insider.
If you’ve seen any of the trailers for Jessica Jones, you probably already know that the upcoming series, similar to Daredevil, is overtly adult. We see Jessica dealing with substance abuse and anger management issues stemming from PTSD from her prior experience as a superhero. She also has a lot of sex with Luke Cage in the trailers, making them a little steamier than what you'd normally get on the major networks.
While primetime TV isn’t devoid of sex or violence, it’s usually pretty tame, bra-on, low stakes sort of stuff. That’s not exactly the direction Netflix’s shows have gone in at all.
Besides the fact that Jessica Jones is a dark comic series and should be a better fit over at Netflix, all of the development delays actually had an unexpected positive side. Apparently, David Tennant was always the dream actor for Kilgrave, but when the project was in development over at ABC, the actor wasn’t available.
With David Tennant, he had been the person we wanted for [the villain] Kilgrave, but he wasn't available at the time. So we went through all the lists and we talked to all different people and then by the time I actually came around to shooting it, he was available again so we jumped on him like mad people.
Jessica Jones is heading to the schedule very soon. You can bingewatch to your heart’s content starting this Friday, November 20 at 12:01 a.m. PT.
