Netflix’s Marvel TV Series Aren’t Coming to Disney+… for Now

The saga of Netflix’s disappearing Marvel TV series continues, although the latest development is more about what’s not happening—i.e., the shows relocating to Marvel’s entertainment hub at Disney+. A list of the content coming to the streaming service in March has been revealed, and it does not include any mentions of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Punisher, or the Defenders.

It’s a bummer, but it’s not too surprising given that there’s never been any concrete information that the five shows would be coming to Disney+, or the other Disney-owned streaming service Hulu, next month or in fact any month, although it seems supremely likely that the Netflix shows will end up on one or the other eventually. Disney+ not only holds all of Marvel’s movies, including those out of Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity like the Fox X-Men films and F4nt4st4c F44r, along with most Marvel animated series ever produced. Thanks to Charlie Cox’s appearance as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Netflix series are in a murky continuity limbo with the MCU, which makes them significantly more important to the viewers than dreck like the Inhumans TV series.

So I personally expect Daredevil and the gang to come to Disney+ eventually, but what’s the hold-up? I can think of a few possibilities:

1) When Marvel signed its deal with Netflix to make the shows, Netflix included some kind of “non-complete” clause which said if they were pulled, the series couldn’t air on other streaming services for a specific period of time.

2) Disney could bring all five series to Disney+ in March 1 if it wanted to, but is concentrating more on original Marvel content and can’t be bothered to deal with stuff that was co-created with other companies.

3) Disney could bring all six series to Disney+ in March, but is going to hold keep them unavailable for a while to drive excitement for when they’re eventually released.

4) The shows are actually in a weird legal quagmire between Disney and Netflix where Disney can prevent Netflix from airing them but Netflix doesn’t have to give them to Disney, and the two companies are arguing about the price for their release.

To be clear, this is all completely baseless speculation, other than that Disney has confirmed to us March will be utterly Daredevil-, Jessica Jones-, Luke Cage-, Iron Fist-, Punisher-, and Defenders-less. We’ll just have to wait and see until… uh… they can be seen, I guess.

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