Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Iron Fist (TV series)

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Developed by
  
Scott Buck

Country of origin
  
United States

Composer(s)
  
Trevor Morris

Genre
  
Action/adventure Martial arts Mystery fiction Superhero

Based on
  
Iron Fist by Roy Thomas Gil Kane

Starring
  
Finn Jones Jessica Henwick David Wenham Jessica Stroup Tom Pelphrey Rosario Dawson

Marvel's Iron Fist, or simply Iron Fist, is an upcoming American web television series developed for Netflix by Scott Buck, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise and is the fourth in a series of shows that will lead up to The Defenders crossover miniseries. The series is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios, with Buck serving as showrunner.

Contents

Finn Jones stars as Danny Rand / Iron Fist, a martial arts expert with the ability to call upon the power of the Iron Fist. Jessica Henwick, David Wenham, Jessica Stroup, Tom Pelphrey, and Rosario Dawson also star. After a film based on the character spent over a decade in development at Marvel Studios, development for the series began in late 2013 at Marvel Television, with Buck hired as the series showrunner in December 2015 and Jones cast as Rand in February 2016. Filming began in New York City in April 2016 and concluded in October 2016.

Iron Fist had its premiere on March 14, 2017, with the full season of 13 episodes releasing on Netflix on March 17, 2017. The series was panned by critics, with many criticizing the pace and storytelling, the underwhelming fight sequences, and Jones' portrayal of Rand. Some positives for the series were the appearances of established characters, Claire Temple and Jeri Hogarth, and Henwick's performance as Colleen Wing.

Premise

Danny Rand returns to New York City, after being presumed dead for 15 years, to reclaim his family company. When a threat emerges, Rand must choose between his family's legacy and his duties as the Iron Fist.

Main

  • Finn Jones as Danny Rand / Iron Fist:
  • A billionaire Buddhist monk and martial arts expert proficient in kung-fu, with the ability to call upon the power of the Iron Fist. Jones described the character as "someone struggling to find his identity", explaining, "He's a superhero with a real heart but has spiritual elements as well. I think ... there's this [contradiction] of on one hand he's from a very wealthy family, he's a billionaire, on the other hand he's been in this world of K’un-Lun for a long time where he's learned kung fu and Buddhist philosophy." Jones, an orphan like Rand, was able to understand "that need for something more... that loneliness that Danny feels," given Rand lost his parents at the age of ten and for the last 15 years has been living under harsh conditions in a monastery. Jones continued, "Danny gets really stressed and really pissed off sometimes, and I understand that. I think it's the alienation aspect, but also that optimism. I understand Danny's optimism and where that comes from." Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb noted that Rand is younger than Marvel's other Defenders, and that he "has a certain kind of optimism and hope about him that brings a certain thing to" the team. In preparation for the role, Jones studied kung fu, wushu and tai chi, along with weight training, Buddhist philosophy and meditation. In response to the character being criticized as a white savior, showrunner Scott Buck said that he had approached the character without knowing of the racial issues surrounding him and his comic history, and that Rand is "trying to save himself, if anything," a sentiment Jones agreed with. Toby Nichols portrays a young Danny Rand.
  • Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing:
  • An ally of Rand who runs her own martial arts dojo in New York City. Henwick felt the most defining word for Wing was "alone", saying, "She doesn't want to be anyone's love interest and open herself up in that way." Henwick also tried "to pull out that sort of very dry humor that [Wing] has, and that no bullshit New Yorker demeanor" from the comics version in her portrayal.
  • David Wenham as Harold Meachum:
  • A ruthless corporate leader who was partners with Rand’s parents at the time of their deaths. Regarding Harold's relationship with his children, Joy and Ward, Wenham said the dynamic between the three of them "is complex, to say the least. It’s multilayered, it’s multidimensional, it’s surprising and it’s forever changing, depending on the circumstances."
  • Jessica Stroup as Joy Meachum:
  • The daughter of Harold and childhood acquaintance of Rand, whose work building up Rand Enterprises with her brother Ward is threatened to be undone with Rand's return. Stroup said that Joy "absolutely loves" Rand, and his return to New York is "like this rebirth of what she once was, and she gets to ask these questions about herself because he’s posing them to her." Stroup said that Joy would initially be unsure whether Rand is who he says he is.
  • Tom Pelphrey as Ward Meachum:
  • The son of Harold and childhood acquaintance of Rand, whose work building up Rand Enterprises with his sister Joy is threatened to be undone with Rand's return. Ward is a character from the comics, though Pelphrey noted "we’re not necessarily beholden to representing him [in the series] exactly as he appears in the comic book." Stroup said that Ward would experience some "male angst" on Rand's return, because "Ward would have been the one who picked on [Rand] when he was little so as pure and innocent and great as Iron Fist is, he comes in and he causes some problems" there.
  • Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple: A former nurse from Hell's Kitchen who joins Wing's dojo. Dawson reprises her role from previous Marvel Netflix series.
  • Recurring

  • Wai Ching Ho as Gao: An accomplished woman with her own heroin trade in Hell's Kitchen. Ho reprises her role from Daredevil.
  • Guest

  • Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth:
  • An attorney who helps Rand once he returns to New York. Buck said, "She has an extremely important role in Danny’s life ... she’s very involved in our story and Danny’s journey." Loeb added, "Danny has very much a hopeful optimism about him, and Carrie-Anne obviously lives in a different kind of world, and so being able to see those two worlds collide is just the beginning of the many obstacles that he goes through." Moss reprises her role from previous Marvel Netflix series.
  • Michael Maize
  • Lewis Tan as Zhou Cheng: A servant of Ch’i-Lin who is tasked with killing every iteration of the Iron Fist. Tan originally auditioned for the role of Rand.
  • Esau Pritchett
  • Episodes

    Miguel Sapochnik is set to direct an episode of the series.

    Development

    An Iron Fist film had been in development at Marvel Studios since 2000, originally to be co-financed by Artisan Entertainment. Ray Park was hired to star, but the project went through multiple directors and ultimately did not come to fruition. Development continued after Marvel Studios began to self-finance their films in the middle of the decade, with Marvel hiring a group of writers to develop some of their "lesser-known properties", including Iron Fist. In 2010, Rich Wilkes was hired to write a new draft for the film, and by May 2013, Iron Fist was said to be one of the "projects on the horizon" for Marvel.

    In October 2013, Deadline reported that Marvel Television was preparing four drama series and a miniseries, totaling 60 episodes, to present to video on demand services and cable providers, with Netflix, Amazon, and WGN America expressing interest. A few weeks later, Marvel and Disney announced that Marvel Television and ABC Studios would provide Netflix with live action series centered around Iron Fist, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, leading up to a miniseries based on the Defenders. In April 2015, the official title was revealed to be Marvel's Iron Fist. That November, Marvel Television head and executive producer Jeph Loeb addressed unconfirmed rumors that Marvel was having a difficult time balancing Iron Fist's mystical elements in its grounded world, and that the series could be replaced with a film or a Punisher series. He explained that Marvel and Netflix deliberately held off on Iron Fist news until Marvel's Jessica Jones premiered so that series, revolving around a character largely unknown to the general audience, got the spotlight. Loeb promised that news on a showrunner would be coming, and Marvel announced that Scott Buck would serve in the role a month later. The series was originally intended to be the third of the announced series from Netflix, debuting after Jessica Jones, but was switched with Marvel's Luke Cage after Luke Cage became a breakout star of Jessica Jones and Marvel wanting to "follow the momentum". John Dahl, Cindy Holland, Allie Goss, Alison Engel, Kris Henigman, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, Jim Chory, Loeb and Buck serve as executive producers on the series.

    Also in January 2015, Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos stated the series was "eligible to go into multiple seasons for sure" and Netflix would look at "how well [they] are addressing both the Marvel fanbase but also the broader fanbase" in terms of determining if additional seasons would be appropriate. In July 2015, Sarandos said some of the Defenders series would "selectively have multiple seasons as they come out of the gate." Sarandos stated further a year later that a potential second season would not debut until 2018 at the earliest, after Marvel's The Defenders released in 2017.

    Writing

    Tamara Becher serves as a writer on the series, for which each episode is named after a kung-fu move. Quesada stated in July 2016 that "there's a lot going on" in Iron Fist, with Buck and the series' writers weaving together "some great legends from Marvel present and past" including what Quesada believed to be the most antagonists in a single season of a Marvel/Netflix series. That October, Buck stated the series would have a lighter tone to it than the previous Marvel Netflix series, given that "Danny Rand himself is a much lighter character. He's someone that has optimism and hope, and despite whatever the odds are, everything is always going to work out." Buck also likened Iron Fist to a mystery, saying, "It’s very much about how do you go about proving who you are when there's no way to do that, and that's not just the story, that's also the theme of it, which is 'How do you go about proving who you are when no one knows, including yourself, what's happened to you?'"

    On first discovering Rand's powers, Buck described them as "not the greatest superpowers. All he can do is punch really hard ... you can use it in some ways but in rest of his life, it’s not really all that significant. His greatest gift is his martial arts skills, and that’s something he suffered and worked for." The writers and producers approached "scientists to discuss how someone could potentially have that type of super strength in the real world." Loeb described the series as "Marvel’s foray into martial arts films", and Buck stated that the comics were just "a starting-off point" for the series, which would be "very grounded [and] character driven". The series begins with Rand returning to New York after having been missing, presumed dead, for 15 years. Buck said that "a lot of [the series] is about a journey of finding self ... in terms of what he wants to be as far as ‘Who is Danny Rand? What is the Iron Fist?’ and then, ‘How do these things get together?'" Loeb described the structure of the first season as building "through a series of sort of metaphorical fights, which is very important in a martial arts film, to sort of show how the character needs to grow from the innocent, wide-eyed person to someone who has to come to terms with ‘this is the way the outside world works—how am I going to make it work for me?’ It’s a journey of self, which is something that we haven’t really had a chance to do" in previous Marvel series.

    Continuing on the idea from the previous Marvel Netflix series that New York City is a "fifth Defender", Loeb said the series would examine the high-end financial world of New York City, examining "the One Percent of the One Percent and how that affects our world on a day-to-day basis... high-level corporation, Big Pharma, things like that". Jones added the series examined "corporate corruption and corporate responsibility in the modern world, and... [h]ow much do corporations have impact on society? And what we actually look at in the show is the heroin epidemic of the city, and how corporations maybe actually fund the heroin epidemic, and what that means to society".

    Jones felt the series was "actually a feminist television show" calling the female characters "incredibly strong, incredibly unique, and they really hold the men up in that world... All the men in our show are falling apart. They need these women to hold them up". In terms of Rand donning a costume in the season, Buck stated, "There was no good reason we could imagine to put Danny Rand in a costume. Because Danny Rand is still discovering who he is as a hero and where he is going to be, so he’s not yet ready to put on a mask or a costume. [A]t the same time he is someone who is rather well known as a billionaire, so he can’t necessarily go out in public and do the things he does without being recognized. It does become an issue for the character."

    Casting

    Casting for Iron Fist began by November 2015, with Finn Jones being cast as Danny Rand / Iron Fist in February 2016, but not officially confirmed by Marvel until March. On casting Jones, Buck said, "we saw him and I think we all just knew immediately this is our guy... He just seemed to be able to display [the character's youthful optimism and badass attitude] when needed and sometimes all at once, so he was very capable and flexible as he brought the character to life." At the same time, Marvel was in the process of searching for actors of Asian descent to play the role of Shang-Chi. By April, Jessica Henwick, David Wenham, Jessica Stroup and Tom Pelphrey were cast as Colleen Wing, Harold Meachum, Joy Meachum and Ward Meachum, respectively, rounding out the main cast for the series. In October 2016, it was revealed that Rosario Dawson would reprise her role of Claire Temple from previous Marvel/Netflix series.

    Carrie-Anne Moss and Wai Ching Ho also return from previous Marvel Netflix series, respectively as Jeri Hogarth and Gao.

    Design

    Stephanie Maslansky is the costume designer for Iron Fist, after serving the same role for the previous Marvel Netflix series. Maslansky noted one of the differences in the series compared to the other Marvel Netflix series was the neighborhoods it spent time in ("the wealthier neighborhoods; Midtown, Upper East Side, that sort of thing") compared to Hell's Kitchen for Daredevil and Jessica Jones and Harlem for Luke Cage. As such, Rand wears more suits than the other heroes, and given the amount of fighting he does in the series, a lot of spandex was added to increase the suits' flexibility. Rand's look evolves throughout the series, with Maslansky noting, "When we first meet him he's clearly traveled a long way. I wanted people to look at Danny and not be sure exactly what he was. A backpacker, or a homeless man. His look needed to reflect a variety of culture... almost ... otherworldly." Once Rand enters the corporate world, he settles on an "Urban Cali" style, which is "a little looser, little more relaxed. But it’s still a suit. His tie is never tied tightly and he always wears sneakers." This relaxed style for Rand also provided "a strong contrast" to Ward Meachum who is a "far more corporate looking person." The monk costumes and Rand's warrior costume was based on "real Shaolin warrior monk costumes... I took that distinctive silhouette from the Shaolin warrior monk clothing, and we combined it with the traditional colors of the Iron Fist, green and gold." Regarding Gao, Maslansky stated "Her particular look is influenced by ancient China," particularly the Terracotta Army and further progress the "villany" look of the Marvel Netflix series of " surround[ing] themselves with [money], with beautiful things."

    Filming

    Marvel announced in February 2014 that the series would be filmed in New York City, with Quesada stating in April that the show would be filming in areas of Brooklyn and Long Island City that still look like the old Hell’s Kitchen, in addition to sound stage work. Filming began in April 2016, with the working title Kick. Manuel Billeter served as director of photography for the series, after doing the same for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, and Brett Chan is the series' stunt-coordinator and second unit director. Additional filming locations included Mariners Harbor and Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island. Filming wrapped on October 8, 2016.

    Iron Fist was filmed in high dynamic range (HDR), which Billeter stated added "a learning curve" to his work, forcing him to rethink how he would shoot certain scenes, such as a car lights or street lights, which become much brighter in HDR than previously. To compensate, lights would be painted on set to help "bring down the highlights". Post-production vendor Deluxe worked on the series to adjust colors the filming team did not have the chance to tweak on set.

    Music

    In late October 2016, Trevor Morris was revealed to be composing the music for the series. "Award Tour" by A Tribe Called Quest is heard in the series.

    Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins

    Iron Fist is the fourth of the ordered Netflix series, after Marvel's Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, before leading into the miniseries, The Defenders. In November 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that if the characters prove popular on Netflix, “It’s quite possible that they could become feature films," which Sarandos echoed in July 2015. In August 2014, Vincent D'Onofrio, Wilson Fisk in Daredevil, stated that after the "series stuff with Netflix", Marvel has "a bigger plan to branch out". In March 2015, Loeb spoke on the ability for the series to crossover with the MCU films and the ABC television series, saying, "It all exists in the same universe. As it is now, in the same way that our films started out as self-contained and then by the time we got to The Avengers, it became more practical for Captain America to do a little crossover into Thor 2 and for Bruce Banner to appear at the end of Iron Man 3. We have to earn that. The audience needs to understand who all of these characters are and what the world is before you then start co-mingling in terms of where it's going."

    In working around the other Marvel Netflix series, Buck described "a fair amount of freedom", but "because we are leading into The Defenders, we have to leave our show in a very specific place with our character, because we do sort of plant seeds and stories that will then come to fruition in The Defenders. There does have to be a lot of cooperation between all the different" series' showrunners for that aspect. "But other than that," he continued, "we work distinctly by ourselves."

    Release

    Iron Fist is scheduled to be released in March 17, 2017 on the streaming service Netflix worldwide, in Ultra HD 4K and HDR. The 13 hour-long episodes will be released simultaneously, as opposed to a serialized format, to encourage binge-watching, a format which has been successful for other Netflix series.

    Marketing

    Disney Consumer Products created a small line of products that cater to a more adult audience, given the show’s edgier tone. Paul Gitter, senior VP of Marvel Licensing for Disney Consumer Products said, “We’ll be focusing less on products that are targeted at the very young consumer,” and more on teens and adult with products at stores or outlets like Hot Topic. Additionally, the series will be supported by a Marvel Knights merchandise program that will open new opportunities for product lines as well as new collector focused opportunities. Despite not being a feature film property, licensing partners wanted to pair up with Marvel given its previous successes; “When we go to partners, they pretty much rely on history as being reflective of the future,” Gitter said.

    In October 2016, Buck and the series' main cast promoted the series at New York Comic-Con, debuting exclusive footage from the series and the first look at the first trailer. In early February 2017, the official trailer for the series was released. On March 14, 2017, the series held its premiere at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

    Critical response

    The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 14% approval rating with an average rating of 4.57/10 based on 21 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Despite some promising moments, Iron Fist is weighed down by an absence of momentum and originality." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 35 out of 100 based on reviews from 8 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

    Reviewing the first six episodes of the series, Daniel Fienberg for The Hollywood Reporter had negative thoughts, calling Iron Fist Marvel and Netflix's "first big misstep" adding, "Iron Fist feels like a step backward on every level, a major disappointment that already suffers from storytelling issues through the first six episodes... and would probably be mercifully skippable in its entirety if it weren't the bridge into the long awaited Defenders crossover series." Fienberg noted the many things lacking in the series from previous Marvel Netflix series, including: "street-level authenticity"; "subtext" as "There's no specificity to Danny's experience other than the most generic of identity crises...and Jones is far too placid a leading man to give any sense of Danny's internal torment," which leads him to come across like "a spoiled frat boy"; and "a worthy adversary to our hero", which added to the "baffling" number of basic character archetypes missing in the series, as there was also "no comic relief or voice of wise authority and well-delivered exposition." He called the series' fights "weakly staged and all-too-brief, without any effort to even pretend that the show's leading man is doing any of his own stunts" and felt "Danny's strength and his enhanced abilities are barely explained and inconsistently depicted." Fienberg also felt of Dawson appearance, that "after five seasons of four Marvel-Netflix shows, nobody has yet figured out what [Claire Temple's] role in this universe is other than 'continuity'."

    Variety's Maureen Ryan gave a negative review for the first two episodes, calling the series "frustrating", "ferociously boring" and "inessential". Ryan added, "Not one element of this plodding piece works. The action scenes lack spark, snap, and originality. None of the flat, by-the-numbers characters makes any lasting impression... It takes forever for anything to happen on Iron Fist, and as it stumbles along, the uninspired production design, unexceptional cinematography, and painful dialogue fail to distract the viewer from the overall lack of depth, detail, or momentum." Ryan also questioned why Henwick could not have been the star of the series, after claiming she was "underwritten" as Colleen Wing, or another Asian actor, to stand out with Jessica Jones and Luke Cage where "the distinct identities and concerns their protagonists carried into battle... Those kinds of social, political, and moral clashes among specific characters and cultures could have amped up the drama".

    Allison Keene of Collider.com awarded the series 3 stars out of 5 after seeing the first six episodes. She called the series "a confused, choppy mix of the supernatural seen through the lens of business casual... Despite a very good cast and a great origin story, Iron Fist is predictable, a little hammy, and has no real sense of how to tell a cohesive story. As such, it has a few moments that are great and many that are not." Keene also noted the "glacial pace forces plot points and character interactions to be drawn out to a ludicrous degree. Even when things do pick up from there, the editing is choppy, the narrative doesn’t connect particularly well, and Danny’s personality and decision making abilities are split somewhere between an adult man and a 12-year-old boy (which is no real fault of Jones’ — he comes off as charming). It leaves the show with a lot of moving parts and a lot of potential, but ultimately without a central drive or clear motivations." Keene agreed with Fienberg on the lack of villain the series presented as well as, "a very awkwardly shoe-horned Claire Temple", noting at this point it is "less and less believable as each show wears on that the eventual Defenders haven’t run into each other, or that these connecting characters don’t bother mentioning other supers they know in the same neighborhood." She concluded that instead of presenting "what could have been the boldest" of the Marvel Netflix series, it instead "doubled-down on the problems" the other series had instead of learning from them.

    In his review for Screen Crush, Kevin Fitzpatrick stated, "The honest truth is that Iron Fist needed to be so much weirder than it actually is, akin to how Doctor Strange essentially re-told the Iron Man story with enough out-there visuals and eccentric supporting characters to paper over any shortcomings. Iron Fist starts to show signs of life in its sixth episode... but the slog in getting there is too great an ask, especially when the vast majority of the principal characters feel so spectacularly underdeveloped." Fitzpatrick felt that Henwick's Colleen Wing was "the most fully-realized character" with "a rich supporting performance" that is overlooked in the early episodes. Uproxx's Alan Sepinwall felt of the first six episodes, "Iron Fist is virtually all talk — most of it painfully dull — and the fighting is both brief and unconvincing. It’s easily the worst of the Netflix Marvel shows — where the others tend to start off well and then run into massive pacing problems around episode 8 or 9, Iron Fist begins as if it’s already at that sag point — and an unfortunate illustration of the perils of miscasting." He also criticized Jones' fighting ability and the way the fights were filmed and edited. Some of the few positive for the series were the appearances of Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth and Dawson. Sepinwall concluded, "the biggest problem with the new show is that no one involved seems to have any kind of take on the material. They’re just making a mostly faithful but personality-free adaptation because someone at Marvel decided four years ago that Danny (who often partners with Luke in the comics) had to be the final member of the team... [As a result,] we got a show that’s so lifeless that I have no interest in finishing out the season".

    Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone criticized Jones' performance, stating, Jones "plays Danny as a case of a secret identity that might be just too well disguised – because he's so totally devoid of charisma, more cub than lone wolf. With his scruffy beard and dazed "who, me?" eyes, Jones could be one of the twinkling boy-men who populated Hollywood comedies a decade ago, except now the party's over and he can't understand why bad hombres keep trying to kill him... Iron Fist has no humor either, so it ends up just looking like a superhero drama where they forgot to invite the superhero.... Iron Fist's hero can't seem to muster any inner turmoil beyond the occasional harshed vibe. There doesn't seem to be much of anything going on his skull. His mystic Zen quotes go over like a Wayne's World set-up minus the punch line."

    Dan Jolin offered more positive thoughts on the series, giving it 3 stars out of 5 in his review for Empire. He felt it was beneficial that Iron Fist released after Luke Cage, instead of before as originally planned, in order for Doctor Strange to release to introduce the MCU to "all his Eastern-mystical baggage", and called Iron Fist "a fresh presence" compared to "the less ostentatious power-sets and moody, conflicted heroism" of the other Defenders. Jolin did criticize that showrunner Buck had "no sense of connection to his subject" as previous Marvel Netflix showrunners had, and felt it was not until the sixth episode "that you really feel the pulp martial-arts-movie-riffing origins, and that’s thanks to its director, RZA. He finally gives the show a proper sense of flair, shamelessly reveling in the genre’s campier elements through a fun, three-act combat-challenge structure. It’s enough to make you wish they made him the showrunner." He concluded, "Iron Fist works some fantastical flavor into the MCU’s down-to-earth Defenders nook, but it needs more proper kung-fu flair than showrunner Buck allows."

    References

    Iron Fist (TV series) Wikipedia