The Defenders (miniseries)

Did You Know?

• At the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, a teaser trailer featured the word 'Defend' forming from pieces of the logos of the four previous series over the shape of a giant hand.
• The Defenders was removed from Netflix on March 1, 2022, and began streaming on Disney+ on March 16, 2022.

Cast and characters

Charlie Cox portrays Matt Murdock / Daredevil, a blind pro-bono lawyer with enhanced senses who secretly acts as a vigilante. Cox believed that Murdock's experiences in the second season of Daredevil, particularly fighting alongside Elektra Natchios and Frank Castle, prepared the character to accept help in The Defenders, and that Natchios' death would weigh heavily on him. Ramirez compared Murdock and Natchios' relationship to a more overtly sexual version of the characters in Fight Club, with Natchios as Murdock's burden after her resurrection.

Cox anticipated a fiery relationship between Murdock and Jessica Jones due to both characters being opinionated and stubborn. Krysten Ritter plays Jessica Jones, a private investigator with post-traumatic stress disorder who runs Alias Investigations. Ritter found it interesting to see what forces Jones to team up with the other heroes, as she is against being a superhero. At the start of the series, Jones is still dealing with the aftermath of killing Kilgrave and has not adjusted to the increased number of clients.

Ramirez noted that Jones would struggle with letting three men into her life whom she does not fully trust. Ritter described the dynamic between Jones and Murdock as cat and mouse. Mike Colter appears as Luke Cage, a former convict with superhuman strength and unbreakable skin who fights crime in Harlem. Colter felt that none of the Defenders would want to be in a group together, and that Cage is in his own world.

Cage's imprisonment from the first season of Luke Cage is addressed at the beginning of the miniseries, removing a burden and allowing a different approach to life. Colter said Cage acts as the conciliator for the group and a mentor to Danny Rand, a pairing that pays homage to the Heroes for Hire comics with a wisdom-versus-youth quality.

Production

In October 2013, Deadline Hollywood reported that Marvel Television was preparing four drama series and a miniseries totaling 60 episodes for video on demand services and cable providers, with Netflix, Amazon, and WGN America expressing interest. A few weeks later, Marvel Television and ABC Studios announced they would provide Netflix with live action series centered on Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, leading to a miniseries based on the Defenders.

In November 2015, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada stated there was no apprehension about changing the Defenders' lineup from the classic original because the concept and name applied naturally to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In April 2016, Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez, showrunners for the second season of Daredevil, were announced as showrunners and executive producers for The Defenders. Daredevil creator Drew Goddard also serves as an executive producer, along with Karim Zreik, Cindy Holland, Allie Goss, Alison Engel, Kris Henigman, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, Jim Chory, and Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb.

S. J. Clarkson, who directed the first two episodes, also serves as an executive producer on the first episode. In July 2016, Loeb confirmed the miniseries would consist of eight episodes and stated that Petrie and Ramirez would consult with the showrunners of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist on how their characters would act. The other showrunners read each script and provided insight into each character's world. Petrie noted that Melissa Rosenberg, showrunner of Jessica Jones, was protective of her character and wanted to get it right.

Rosenberg felt included in the process. Loeb compared this relationship to Joss Whedon consulting with Phase One filmmakers before directing The Avengers.

Reception

Netflix does not reveal subscriber viewership numbers for its original series. The marketing analytics firm Jumpshot determined that The Defenders garnered 17% of the viewers that the second season of Daredevil received in its first 30 days, making it the least-viewed Marvel Netflix series and having the largest week-over-week drop in viewership, declining by 67%, 48%, and 41% over the 30-day period. Jumpshot analyzed anonymized click-stream data from a panel of over 100 million internet consumers, factoring in the relative number of U.S. Netflix viewers who watched at least one episode, excluding viewing on connected TV or mobile apps.

Netflix noted that the Binge Racing ranking had no relation to overall viewership. Nielsen Media Research reported that the miniseries garnered 2.8 million viewers on the day of its release and that the first episode averaged 6.1 million viewers during its premiere week in August. Parrot Analytics reported that The Defenders was the most in-demand digital original series and the fourth-most popular show overall from August 20 to 26, 2017, with demand increasing by 24% from the previous week.

It ranked in the top 0.1% of U.S. TV shows in terms of audience demand and engagement from November 7, 2017, to November 8, 2018. In July 2021, Parrot Analytics reported that the series continued to generate significant global audience demand years after its release, with interest levels 3.5 times the global average for TV shows.

Future

In January 2015, Netflix COO Ted Sarandos said that The Defenders was eligible to go into multiple seasons and that Netflix would look at how well it addressed both the Marvel fanbase and the broader fanbase. However, in July 2016, Loeb referred to the miniseries as a one-off event rather than a season of an ongoing story. Finn Jones said the miniseries felt like the end of Phase One of the Marvel Netflix series, leading into the beginning of another phase, while Krysten Ritter said she would be happy to return for more despite it being planned as a one-time event.

In mid-2018, Loeb and Netflix vice president of original content Cindy Holland both stated there were no plans to continue the series. In September 2018, Netflix renamed the Facebook page for the series to NX, Netflix's new geek-friendly division of genre content, without altering the Twitter account. Fans were upset at the apparent bait-and-switch, with many suggesting they would have followed a separate page for NX. Kofi Outlaw of ComicBook.com felt this change was a pretty big indicator that Netflix was done with The Defenders.

In response, Loeb reiterated that there were still no plans for the series to continue, but this did not mean it would never be continued, especially since a Defenders team was not actually formed in the miniseries and future stories could focus on different characters. Ahead of Charlie Cox's appearance as Daredevil in Echo, released in January 2024, Marvel Studios head of streaming Brad Winderbaum acknowledged that Marvel Studios had previously been cagey about what was part of their Sacred Timeline due to the corporate divide between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television.

He felt confident in saying Daredevil was part of the Sacred Timeline. With Echo's release, all the Netflix series were retroactively added to the MCU Disney+ timeline, with The Defenders placed between the films Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War.