People may have noticed the #SaveDaredevil hashtag trending on Twitter this past weekend, something that we had not seen in a while. This was prompted by the fact that two years have passed since the third season of Daredevil was released by Netflix, and the rights to the property have reverted to Marvel and its corporate owner Disney. So fans are once again stumping for the show to return with new episodes, either on Disney+, Hulu, or another venue owned by the Mouse House. Series star Vincent D’Onofrio even got into the act, sending out a tweet encouraging fans to sign the online petition lobbying for a fourth season of the show (which currently has over 400K signatures).
Daredevil is based on the Marvel superhero of the same name and first appeared on Netflix in Spring of 2015. That show was the first of four entries on the streaming service spotlighting a Marvel character and would be followed by Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist (and later The Punisher would arrive as a spin-off from Daredevil). All four of the heroes (as well as supporting characters from the shows) would later come together in the Defenders mini-series. Daredevil met with immediate acclaim upon its release as did Jessica Jones. Luke Cage was also well-received, but not so much Iron Fist and The Defenders. Still, all of the shows together provided solid superhero entries with Daredevil and Jessica Jones going three seasons, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher going two, along with The Defenders mini-series.
All of the shows proved to be hits for Netflix with Daredevil typically pulling the strongest viewership. So when Netflix cancelled the series in late 2018 (shortly after the announcement that Luke Cage would end after two seasons), the news came as quite a surprise. This was partly due to corporate politics as Disney announced the launch of its own streaming service which apparently led to some bad blood between the two companies. But this was also right about the time that we started seeing Netflix’s tendency to end its originals by their third or fourth season, so it is unlikely that Daredevil or any of the other Marvel entries would have gone beyond a fourth year on the streamer.
The cancellation announcement in November 2018 led immediately to the #SaveDaredevil campaign which is one of the more active and better-organized campaigns that I have seen over the past decade or so. It brought immediate attention to the cancellation by getting #SaveDaredevil and similar hashtags trending on social media as well as racking up massive signatures for the online campaign. But Netflix held the rights to the characters for two years after their final season, so the property remained in limbo. Now that the rights for Daredevil are back in the hands of Marvel/Disney, fans are ramping up efforts again to convince the powers that be to produce a fourth season of the series (and possibly bring back the other characters from the Netflix shows as well).
There were talks that Marvel had plans to bring Daredevil into the MCU movies and that they would recast the role. The fans are definitely against that as they want Charlie Cox back in the lead role and they want a continuation of the series. Bringing that show back would definitely be in Disney’s best interest as it would certainly lead to a boost in subscriptions/viewership on whichever platform it lands. The rather gritty series would not be a good fit for the more family-friendly Disney+ service, but it would work well on the Disney-owned Hulu or perhaps the cable channel FX (which the Mouse House acquired with the FOX buyout). In any case, there are plenty of landing spots for the show and plenty of reasons for Marvel/Disney to bring it back for a fourth season or more.
With the recent change to the show’s status, the #SaveDaredevil campaign is back in full force, getting the show trending on the social networks, pulling in additional signatures for the petition, and more. You can go to the main site to follow the current efforts to convince Marvel/Disney to bring the show back. And we here at Cancelled Sci Fi will be doing what we can to pass along the latest from the campaign. Fans previously succeeded in saving shows like The Expanse, Lucifer, and Timeless, and perhaps we can get another season of Daredevil and maybe Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, etc. If we raise our voices loud enough, we may very well succeed in swaying the corporate brass to make the right decision with this property.
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