The release of Marvel’s Jessica Jones this weekend put us one notch closer to the massive Defenders teamup, with Luke Cage due to arrive next year, and Iron Fist sometime after that. The lack of Iron Fist news has bred many a rumor of Marvel’s uncertainty over the series, though its TV head claims that announcements deliberately waited until after Jessica Jones had premiered.

Speaking with Comic Book Resources, Marvel TV boss Jeph Loeb backed up creative head Kevin Feige’s earlier insistence that Iron Fist remains on track, despite recent rumors suggesting Daredevil’s Punisher would instead take the fourth Defender slot, leaving Iron First to a one-off Netflix movie. Instead, Marvel and Netflix wanted to focus on promoting Jessica Jones, a lesser-known character, before shifting focus back to the Defenders at large:

One of the things we wanted to be able to do was make sure that “Jessica” – which was a property that a lot of people did not know, and really, hats off to the people at Netflix who came up with the ad campaign, which is a sign that the world learned her name … Every time you start any property, whether it’s in comics or in movies or in television or in animation, everyone’s always looking for, “Tell us a little something about the next one, so we can get the jump on that story.”

There was a lot of speculation about what was going on with “Iron Fist,” because [fans] hadn’t heard anything about it, but there’s never been any change at all. We knew exactly what we were doing at Marvel and at Netflix. Let’s get “Jess” out there, everybody knows that “Luke Cage” is up and going. What I can say right now is, we’re very excited about “Iron Fist,” and the short answer is, yes there’ll be news.

Production on Luke Cage has already gotten well underway, and Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg suggested that Defenders filming could get in the way of a second Jessica Jones season, suggesting a production date at least sometime in the next year or two. In any case, Iron Fist would likely need to begin writing/production in the near future, so how long until Jessica has her turn in the spotlight long enough for Danny Rand to step up?

 

More From ComicsAlliance