Iron Fist canceled at Netflix; no season 3 for Marvel series
Today, the streaming service confirmed the news in a joint statement with Marvel. Take a look at it (via Deadline) below:
“Marvel’s Iron Fist will not return for a third season on Netflix … Everyone at Marvel Television and Netflix is proud of the series and grateful for all of the hard work from our incredible cast, crew and showrunners … We’re thankful to the fans who have watched these two seasons, and for the partnership we’ve shared on this series. While the series on Netflix has ended, the immortal Iron Fist will live on.”
So why did this happen? It’s really hard to figure out a precise reasoning for it, other than just that the ratings for the streaming service must not have been good enough proportional to the series’ budget. This is still a big surprise for us, but since Netflix doesn’t release the ratings for any of its shows, it was always hard to gauge the success of some of these. The first season of Iron Fist struggled in terms of critical reception, with some bashing the interpretation of the Danny Rand characters whereas others were frustrated with the story as a whole. The reviews for season 2 were a little bit better, but we think the series suffered mostly from superhero fatigue. The show was put on after the launches of both Luke Cage and Jessica Jones this year, and there may have been too much Marvel programming at once.
Remember here also that one of the things that Netflix really gauges in determining the success of their shows is initial viewership over the course of the first few months it is available. If the immediate buzz isn’t there, what that means is that there may not be much hope for the future.
What do you think about Iron Fist being canceled at Netflix? Do you want to imagine the show ending up elsewhere, unlikely as that may be? Be sure to share right away in the attached comments! (Photo: Netflix.)