Geekery: Netflix has Cancelled ‘Iron Fist’ & ‘Luke Cage’
Official word on why the two shows have gotten the ax isn’t out yet, but there’s a lot of speculation and educated guesses from the industry.
Losing Iron Fist isn’t a surprise. The show’s first season was abysmal and had the reviews to show it. In an effort to turn it around Netflix brought in a new production team for season two. I found the second season to be better, but the damage was already done. Less people were willing to give it chance after the first season, and for those that did watch it it was still a slog. While I would have liked to see some of the characters continue development, I’m not really sad to see it go.
The cancellation of ‘Luke Cage’ came as a surprise because Cheo Hodari Coker and the writers were already hard at work on the third season. It was also pulling in decent reviews for its current run. Deadline is pointing to several factors – large budgets, story decisions, and fights between the two corporations…
Add to that, the writers’ room was put on hold for a week in September as the streamer and the Disney-owned company were figuring out the mechanisms of changing the deal for the planned Luke Cage third season from the original 13 episodes to 10 episodes. It eventually escalated to behind-the-scenes turmoil in the past two days and demands for changes in creative regime. With Marvel and Netflix seemingly intractable and on different sides of the disputes, a harsh cancelation became the only viable exit strategy, it appears.
Where the future will take the characters involved isn’t known. We saw the possible start of Daughters of the Dragon. I’d like to see a Heroes for Hire team up based on the bit of crossover they did in the second season of Luke Cage, but given how Coker was booted I don’t think that’ll happen in the way I want.
I will miss the heart put into Luke Cage. It had pacing issues from the start and some questionable choices in character development, but there was care in the details. The music and the musical guests were always on point, Coker made sure that Harlem was represented and brought together a great cast.
This major shake up also puts the rest of the Netflix MCU into question. There was worry about what would happen with Disney getting into the streaming business and spinning up their own Marvel shows. Both The Punisher (done filming) and Jessica Jones (currently filming) have new seasons coming out next year. No one knows what is in store after those air.
