The Defenders (miniseries)

Premise

Set a few months after the events of the second season of Daredevil, the vigilantes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist team-up in New York City to fight a common enemy, The Hand.

Main

Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil:

A blind lawyer who becomes the vigilante Daredevil. Cox stated that the second season of Daredevil, which sees Murdock fight alongside Elektra and the Punisher, prepared Murdock for the Defenders, saying, "Something that’s very tricky for Matt is to allow anyone to help him. He finds it impossible to ask for help. One of the lessons that he’s [starting] to learn... is that he needs other people, he needs help." Cox added that the start of the miniseries sees Elektra's death at the end of Daredevil's second season weighing heavily on Murdock, that he is "a little bit lost, and the best he can do for now is to not engage in his vigilante activities," though he has not "completely found peace with that idea." In addition, Murdock still looks to his faith regarding his actions, with Cox commenting, "He believes that his intentions are good. He’s always, always going to wonder if he’s committing mortal sin." Cox also felt that Murdock and Jessica Jones would have a "fiery relationship" in the series since both characters are "quite opinionated and quite stubborn."

Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones:

A private investigator suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who has her own agency, Alias Investigations. Ritter felt it would be interesting to see what forces Jones to team up with the other heroes, since "she doesn't want to be a superhero. She doesn't want anything to do with that." She added that at the start of the series, Jones is "still dealing with the aftermath of Kilgrave" along with the new found "success" for Alias Investigations at the conclusion of the first season of Jessica Jones, stating, "People want her to work for them, she’s getting a lot of business, and she’s not ready for any of that." Describing the dynamic between Jones and the rest of the team, showrunner Marco Ramirez says, "She’s gloriously the most reluctant hero in the world. She’s going to have to let three men into her life who she doesn’t 100 percent trust." Ritter noted that Jones and Murdock would have a "cat and mouse" dynamic, with the roles switching between the two characters.

Mike Colter as Luke Cage:

A former convict at Seagate Prison with superhuman strength and unbreakable skin who now fights crime. Colter felt that none of the Defenders seemed like they would want to be in a superhero group together, and said that though Cage, specifically, "knows there are other people like him," he "is in his own world." He added that the beginning of the series would deal with the consequences of Cage voluntarily going to prison to atone for his past, saying, "He’s been able to come clean and deal with his past... The difficulty with Cage [in the first season of Luke Cage] is that he has this secret, he has this thing that he’s been trying to run away from and deal with, and that’s a big burden to bear. That weighs on you, that changes who you are as a person. Now that that’s out of the way, I think we can give him a different approach to life." Colter added that Cage would act as "the conciliator" for the group as well as a mentor to Danny Rand. The combination of Cage and Rand was done as an homage to the pair's relationship in Heroes for Hire, that Colter described as "a cool combination" and would have "a wisdom-versus-youth quality."

Finn Jones as Danny Rand / Iron Fist:

A billionaire Buddhist monk and martial arts expert, with the ability to call upon the mystical power of the Iron Fist. Jones said that Rand is the one "who really knows what's going on, he knows how serious this situation is" and the one who "drives the group to get shit done." Jones described the difference in Rand from Iron Fist versus The Defenders as "Danny in his adolescence" in the former, and "Danny taking responsibility and moving forward with his purpose" in the latter. He continued, saying, "He’s craving desperately for family, for help, for guidance, for people to learn from, and for a team [in The Defenders]. But because of what happens in Iron Fist, he’s very untrusting. It’s really his way or no way." Jones also felt that between Iron Fist and The Defenders, the series and miniseries was "the complete first season of Danny’s journey." Colter described Rand as "a young guy" with "an exuberance... that Luke Cage wants to temper a bit... Danny comes out like a bull in a china shop in some ways, and I think Luke has seen the world and knows certain things."

Élodie Yung as Elektra Natchios: A mysterious and dangerous woman from Murdock's past, who is the Black Sky, a weapon of The Hand. Yung reprises her role from Daredevil.

Guest

Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra:

Weaver described the character as "really smart" and "very in charge", while showrunner Marco Ramirez described her as "a very powerful force in New York City. She's everything Sigourney is: sophisticated, intellectual, dangerous." As the villain of the series, the character had to be "something massive to pull these four [hero] characters from their individual worlds to work together, but also small enough that it felt like it existed in our world."

Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse: Jones' neighbor and assistant at Alias Investigations. Darville reprises his role from Jessica Jones.

Simone Missick as Misty Knight: A Harlem police detective who is Cage's ally. Missick reprises her role from Luke Cage.

Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page: Murdock's former assistant and a burgeoning news reporter. Woll reprises her role from Daredevil.

Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson: Murdock's close friend and former law partner who now works with Hogarth. Henson reprises his role from Daredevil.

Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth: A lawyer and ally of Jones and Rand. Moss reprises her role from previous Marvel Netflix series.

Scott Glenn as Stick: Murdock's mentor and leader of The Chaste who wages a war against The Hand. Glenn reprises his role from Daredevil.

Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker: Jones' adoptive sister and best friend who hosts her own radio talk show. Taylor reprises her role from previous Marvel Netflix series.

Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple: A former nurse who gives medical aid to vigilantes. Dawson reprises her role from previous Marvel Netflix series.

Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing: Rand's lover and the owner of a New York City dojo. Henwick reprises her role from Iron Fist.

Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance through an on-set photograph, the same seen in previous Marvel Netflix series.

Episodes

Uta Briesewitz will direct the fifth episode in the series.

Development

In October 2013, Deadline reported that Marvel 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 Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, leading up to a miniseries based on the Defenders. In November 2015, Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief Joe Quesada stated there was no apprehension from Marvel in changing the line up of the Defenders from the "classic" original line-up (Doctor Strange, Hulk, Namor and Silver Surfer) to Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, "because to the world at large, no one knows who the Defenders are. So the idea of taking the concept and name and applying it to [the Marvel Cinematic Universe] feels wholly natural" adding that Marvel has "a wonderful concept" behind why the group would form in the MCU and why they would be called the Defenders.

In April 2016, Marvel announced that Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez, the showrunners for the second season of Marvel's Daredevil, would serve as showrunners and executive producers on Marvel's The Defenders, with Daredevil creator Drew Goddard also serving as an executive producer on the miniseries. In January 2015, Netflix COO Ted Sarandos had stated that 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. However, in July 2016, Marvel Television head and executive producer Jeph Loeb referred to the miniseries as a one-off event rather than a season of an ongoing story. Loeb also confirmed that the miniseries would have eight episodes, and stated that Petrie and Ramirez would consult with Melissa Rosenberg, Cheo Hodari Coker, and Scott Buck—the showrunners of Marvel's Jessica Jones, Marvel's Luke Cage, and Marvel's Iron Fist, respectively—on how "their characters would react" to certain situations; the other showrunners read each of the scripts for The Defenders and provide insight into each individual character's world. On this collaboration, Petrie said of Rosenberg specifically that she was "wonderful because she's in this position of being a fellow artist and letting us do what we do, but at the same time loving her character and being protective of her character and wanting us to get it right and wanting to guide us and help up, but also let us be free." Rosenberg added that all of the showrunners for the other series "felt really included in the process." Loeb compared this relationship to Joss Whedon's approach with the similar crossover in the MCU films, Marvel's The Avengers, for which Whedon "sought out all of the creative input from everybody that had worked on Iron Man and Hulk and Captain America and Thor, but he had to make The Avengers its own thing."

At the start of filming in October 2016, Petrie left the series as co-showrunner. Loeb explained, "We got to a point where the scripts were done, and we wanted Marco to continue, and Doug pursued other avenues."

Writing

By late May 2016, Petrie and Ramirez had turned in a completed story for the miniseries, based on a "very bare-bones structure" from Loeb. The latter described the completed story as "epic", feeling that all the characters "have great roles ... where everyone feels like they’re telling more of their own ongoing tale." The intention was for the miniseries to feel like "Daredevil season 2.5, a Luke Cage season 1.5, a Jessica Jones 1.5, and Iron Fist 1.5," telling "the story that came after their immediate seasons and before their next ones." Loeb compared this dynamic to the Olympics, where "you get to know all of these athletes in their various sports all throughout their careers, and then once every four years they're going to get together and compete against each other." Coker further compared the miniseries to the forming of the Wu-Tang Clan and Voltron.

Petrie noted that the intent was not to stop any of the character arcs built in the previous series, rather each character is "just taking this incredible epic detour then going back into their own respective pools." Goddard talked about the resulting genre for the miniseries, since each of the individual series were different from one another, feeling that bringing them all together created "its own genre". Ramirez added that the series' tone was "one of the most challenging and most exciting parts of this project", and "has really just been about organically blending [the tones of the previous series] together so that it feels like they're all cohesive and all of a piece." Ramirez and the series' writing team also wanted to ensure the project did not feel like "a corporate mandate", striving to make it "feel earned and real and grounded ... and also topical and important" as the individual series had done.

Cautioning against the "easy comparison" to The Avengers, Loeb said the aim with The Defenders was to say "'OK, how do we do that and how do we do it different?' We saw how the Avengers came together [and] it doesn’t quite go as smoothly as you’d like it to go." He added, "The Defenders didn’t have a 'D' on their belt buckles and a Defenders Tower. We agreed from the very beginning that these folks could at the very end go, 'I never want to see your face again.'" Loeb also noted that "the sky's not going to open up and aliens aren't going to come flying out of it. That's the Avengers' job, that's what they're supposed to do. The street level heroes always come from a very real place." Regarding the antagonist, Ramirez said having the Defenders face an alien threat like the Avengers, for example, was "never an option", as the crossover was always going to be a street level New York story. This did prove challenging in choosing an antagonist though, as the four Defenders are shown to be "really powerful people" in their individual series, and the miniseries' villain had to prove a challenge for the four of them together. To form the team-up, Ramirez stated that each Defender begins to investigate a mystery separately, with the four all converging on the same location after "following their own trail of bread crumbs". Ramirez added, "We wanted them all caught off guard [by seeing one another at the same location]. Once they're in that room together, it's kind of like, 'Oh, shit, who are you?'".

Casting

At the end of May 2014, Charlie Cox was cast as Daredevil for Daredevil. In December 2014, Krysten Ritter was cast as Jessica Jones and Mike Colter was cast as Luke Cage for Jessica Jones, with Colter also headlining Luke Cage. In February 2016, Finn Jones was reported to be cast as Danny Rand for Iron Fist, with Marvel confirming his casting the following month. They also confirmed that Cox, Ritter, Colter, and Jones would all reprise their roles to star in The Defenders. In March 2016, Élodie Yung, who portrays Elektra Natchios in Daredevil, expressed interest in appearing in The Defenders "on the bad side... that would be a good dynamic I think—to be confronted by these four superheroes"; Marvel confirmed Yung's involvement the following November.

In April 2016, Eka Darville said that he would reprise his Jessica Jones role of Malcolm Ducasse in The Defenders. In September, Simone Missick stated that she would be reprising the role of Misty Knight from Luke Cage in the miniseries. In October, at New York Comic-Con, Sigourney Weaver was announced as playing the main antagonist of the miniseries, later revealed to be Alexandra. After production on the miniseries began at the end of that month, Marvel confirmed that Darville and Missick would appear, alongside Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth, Scott Glenn as Stick, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing, all also reprising their roles from previous Marvel Netflix series.

Design

Stephanie Maslansky is the costume designer for The Defenders, after serving the same role for the previous Marvel Netflix series.

Filming

Marvel announced in February 2014 that the series would be filmed in New York City, with Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief Joe 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. In April 2016, Cox confirmed a late 2016 start for filming, following the conclusion of production on Iron Fist in October 2016. The Defenders began filming on October 31, 2016, under the working title Group Therapy. Additional filming took place in the Stapleton neighborhood on Staten Island. Ritter revealed that the series would be filming back-to-back with the second season of Jessica Jones, adding there was the potential to overlap the two productions. Filming wrapped on March 19, 2017.

Music

In February 2017, John Paesano was announced as the composer for the miniseries, after previously composing the first two seasons of Daredevil.

Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins

The Defenders is the final miniseries of the ordered Netflix series, after Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. 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."

The four Defenders all initially meet at the offices of Midland Circle, which was previously mentioned in the second season of Daredevil and Iron Fist.

Release

The Defenders is scheduled to be released in mid-2017 on the streaming service Netflix, worldwide, in Ultra HD 4K and high dynamic range. The eight, 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. In January 2015, Netflix COO Ted Sarandos said Netflix planned to release a Marvel series approximately a year apart from each other after Daredevil's April 2015 release.

Marketing

At San Diego Comic-Con International 2016, a teaser trailer was shown featuring the word "Defend" forming from pieces of the logos from the four previous series over "the ominous shape of a giant hand", along with Glenn providing a voice over as Stick, asking how the four heroes plan to save New York, when they cannot save themselves. For New York Comic-Con later that year, the four Defenders' actors appeared together on stage, along with Weaver, to promote the miniseries.