You would think that even having just a little bit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) would be better than nothing, but Netflix is letting its shows go. Whether because of agreements ending or a new agreement, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders are leaving the streamer at the end of this month, and it looks like they’ll be doing it for good. Disney has announced the formerly Netflix Marvel shows will be coming to Disney+ — in Canada, at least.
Disney confirmed in a Canadian press release that all the Marvel shows will be landing on Disney+ on March 16. That’s only two weeks after they’ll leave Netflix on March 1. It isn’t clear if this date is only for Canada or if the shows will be landing on the streaming platform across the world on that day. International streaming rights are a complicated mess, so it could be easy for Disney to move the shows to Canadian Netflix while being more difficult to do in the U.S. Many believed that the Netflix MCU series would never be anywhere but Netflix given how rare it is for successful shows to jump streaming service, even if the character rights had ended.
The big question this raises is whether or not the Netflix slate of shows will begin fully integrating into the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Disney+. The series were officially part of canon but also kept at an arm’s length due to the former separation of Marvel Television and Marvel Studios. Now with the shows seemingly moving in with the rest of the MCU on Disney+, not to mention certain recent cameos in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye, it seems likely that Marvel has plans for at least one of these shows, if not all of them. Just how they’ll work the more R-rated Netflix series into the PG-13 world of the MCU is unclear, but as long as they spend the first minute of the first rebooted series killing off Danny Rand, then it will be hard to complain.
