Frank Castle defeated everything foreign and urban war zones could throw at him, but he couldn’t defeat the executives at Netflix. After two seasons on the streaming giant Marvel’s The Punisher has been cancelled, and after the airing of its third season, Jessica Jones will be done as well.
Deadline broke the unfortunate news today when Netflix shared the following statement with them, “Marvel’s The Punisher will not return for a third season on Netflix. Showrunner Steve Lightfoot, the terrific crew, and exceptional cast including star Jon Bernthal, delivered an acclaimed and compelling series for fans, and we are proud to showcase their work on Netflix for years to come.”
On Jessica Jones’ future: “In addition, in reviewing our Marvel programming, we have decided that the upcoming third season will also be the final season for Marvel’s Jessica Jones. We are grateful to showrunner Melissa Rosenberg, star Krysten Ritter and the entire cast and crew, for three incredible seasons of this groundbreaking series, which was recognized by the Peabody Awards among many others”.
“We are grateful to Marvel for five years of our fruitful partnership and thank the passionate fans who have followed these series from the beginning.”
The Punisher star Jon Bernthal took to his Instagram account to address the shows cancellation, thanking comic fans, and the men and women of law enforcement and the armed forces community who identified with Frank Castle, and helped train him for his role in the series.
Executive Vice President and Head of Marvel’s television division, Jeph Loeb, addressed the series’ cancellations in a letter to fans on Marvel’s website.
It had never been done before. Four separate television series, each with different super-talented showrunners, writers, directors, cast and crew, coming out months apart and then…
…they would meet in a single event series all set in the heart of New York City.
We called them The Defenders.
They said it couldn’t be done.
But Marvel assembled amazing teams to write, produce, direct, edit, and score 13 seasons and 148 one-hour episodes.
Take a moment and go online and look at the dazzling list of actors, writers, directors, and musicians who graced us with the very best of their craft.
We loved each and every minute of it.
And we did it all for you — the fans — who cheered for us around the world and made all the hard work worth it.
So, Thank You!
On behalf of everyone at Marvel Television, we couldn’t be more proud or more grateful to our audience.
Our Network partner may have decided they no longer want to continue telling the tales of these great characters… but you know Marvel better than that.
As Matthew Murdock’s Dad once said, “The measure of a man is not how he gets knocked to the mat, it’s how he gets back up.”
To be continued…!
– Jeph Loeb and all of us at Marvel Television
The cancellation of The Punisher and Jessica Jones were expected by many fans following last years cancellations of Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Daredevil. But this isn’t necessarily the end of these series.
Marvel has agreed to a four-series deal with Hulu, who has expressed interest in reviving some of the cancelled series. Not only that, but the upcoming Disney+ streaming service will have several of its own Marvel TV series — Tom Hiddleston returning in his role as Loki, and a show focused on The Vision and Scarlet Witch.
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