Doktor

Your last two posts lay out all the variables very well. (thumbs u Thanks for the insight Doktor. Word! Hollywood is weird & complicated & when you get into the actual logistics of it, really really boring & it's kinda hard to even see how they get from "oh, it's take #8 of this boring scene that we're shooting entirely out of order & everyone just wants lunch" into "holy that show/movie/series was awesome & hella creative!"

Daredevil was released only, what, a week now? And it can sit on Netflix pulling in new viewers for a solid year or more. So, yeah, the 'Season 2' yearnings are premature. I get that. What I don't get, and maybe experts here can clarify, is why put off production for years? If a 'Season 1' absorbs the costs of set designs and writers are assembled, the actors are ready, and all that. Why not keep working? Especially for ageless 'evergreen' comic book characters. The actors have to physically train, lose or gain weight for some rolls, So if nothing else, everyone ages a bit and has to go through hell to get back into character a year or so later? Anyway, it seems like continuing production would be the least expensive most productive route for comic book series, once all the initial elements are in place and everyone's good to go. Waiting years and trying to recreate everything, not so much. I think it's more of an issue of changing the plan mid-stream. They had a plan & schedule going into this. They approached everyone from creative to talent to production personnel with a schedule in mind. People have to work between shows & often line up more work 2 or 3 projects ahead. Changing that schedule might not be an option. Maybe they can shoehorn a second season in between LC & IF or between IF & Defenders. But maybe not. And it might not make sense from a story aspect either. You could also look at it as though they're kinda going with the American Horror Story production model here. Every season is different but might have some hold-over cast. They're essentially producing 2x 13-episode seasons per year with different casts in each of them & using maybe some of the same production & crew.

It's not an issue of money. It's an issue of having the personnel, space, equipment & everything else needed for a full-season tv production. Hiring that many set employees, from the lowest craft services people or grips or riggers to the directors, producers, writers, etc isn't as easy as just writing the check. Nor is it necessarily in their plan to buy or restructure the distribution of a whole other batch of equipment for a series production that might or might not get used with regularity afterwards. Just trailers, trucks, cameras, lighting equipment, etc. That stuff gets shuffled from 1 show to another by the production companies. Adding another batch of all of those pieces of equipment has to get budgeted for & they have to have a plan to use them again. Also, Steven DeKnight, Christos & Ruth Gage, all the different directors, etc might all have other projects that they're committed to since they planned on this being a 1-and-done-for-now series without needing to worry about even potentially jumping back into production until sometime in late 2016 or so for Season 2. The writers/directors/producers of shows quite often have that next project scheduled before they are even part way done with the first project. They often plan their schedules & contracts multiple projects ahead. And then there's the actors schedules. Charlie Cox was probably required to remain available for guest-spots on the other Netflix series even if it's only 1 or 2 days of shooting. But maybe Elden & Deborah & Vincent all had work scheduled for after this? At least Vincent has to significantly bulk up for each season of this show compared to his normal size (which isn't small to begin with, but still) Plus, there's the issue of permitting for shooting in NYC or applying for the tax credits to shoot there. That stuff takes some time. They have a plan. Changing that plan just because this series does well when they have similar expectations for 3 other shows not-yet-aired might be jumping the gun. If the other shows falter, maybe they re-examine the plan and jump into early production on a season 2, but it the other series are equally or similarly or even more successful, they're going to stick with their plan.

I'm not sure what their plans were initially, but given the response, they would be foolish not to have a second season. And Marvel has not shown a tendency to foolishness. Question is though, what happens if/when Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and Iron Fist all have similarly high quality production & excellent or even better reception? I guarantee that they don't ditch their existing playbook for Phase 1. They build to Defenders in 2017 like they already had planned. Then they look at DD Season 2 as a Phase 2 series in say... later 2017 or 2018. They can't really audible & try to stuff a Season 2 in before Defenders, especially if the other series of Phase 1 get equal or greater praise? They only have the production staff & budget to make so many shows at once. Marvel Television is already essentially producing up-to 3 series at a time. They're only shooting for 2 at the moment (AoS & AKAJJ) but I don't see it likely they expand to the point where they're shooting upwards of 5 or 7 series at a time, especially series that might have crossover characters) anytime soon or releasing multiple Netflix shows at once. Remember, Marvel TV is developing for both Netflix AND ABC. And we know there's going to be an AoS spinoff coming this fall or next spring. Plus AoS continuing, finishing AKAJJ, Luke Cage starting production soon, possibly a season 2 of Agent Carter. And pre-production on Iron Fist. That's a lot of resources already spoken for. Marvel's plan is a good one. I like it. And I think they stick with it. DD & AKAJJ in 2015, LC & IF in 2016. Defenders in early 2017. And then a phase-2 that probably includes a 2nd season of DD, a Heroes for Hire show to keep all of the other 3 Defenders together, and 2 new series to expand the Marvel Knights brand on TV. As much as I want a DD Season 2 like next week, I also want the rest of the Marvel Knights characters to continue the brand expansion. If that means making me wait an extra year or 2 between seasons, so be it.

Thing with the DD movie was that Joe Carnahan was going to have it set in the 70's (since obviously today's Hell's Kitchen isn't the same as it was in the pre-Rudy days) and totally disconnected from the way DD in the comics is portrayed. Marvel wasn't really happy with the idea of their contemporary superhero used in a period piece. But they also kinda wanted him & his villains back as well (especially since many of them cross over with Spider-Man & because Marvel generally lacks a lot of street-level villains that aren't total Z-listers. and I think Fox only offered 1 of Surfer or Galactus but not both. Marvel wanted both or DD. So... well... we got a kick- DD out of the deal.

Also, one thing you might want to clarify is the issue of the Skrulls. Sorry ahead of time for the long-winded reply: There's joint-use of the Skrulls with Marvel & Fox. The Super-Skrull, however, is part of the FF rights. Here's where it gets a little muddy though: So only the Super Skrull specifically was part of the deal with Fox for FF. But that's like buying the rights to a human character named Bob but having the guy try to argue that you didn't buy the rights to portray the human race. So by default, Fox is allowed to use the Skrull race. But Marvel does as well, since they didn't specifically sell the rights to the Skrull race. Only a particular Skrull character. The problem is with the power sets & the differentiation. The problem is, there's some murkiness with where Skrull powers & Super Skrull powers are divided. Marvel can't use the Super Skrull, but can use the Skrulls. Physically, there's little to differentiate them the way you could say 2 otherwise similar characters that dress totally different but kinda behave the same way. So you can't sort it out that way. Which leaves us with power sets to differentiate. We've obviously seen Skrulls not only take on human form as a power, but mimic powers, without them being Super Skrull. But we also know that Skrulls are only supposed to be humanoid shapeshifters. Not really any more or less strong than any other humanoid alien, which makes them not a terribly interesting enemy in the comics, while Super Skrulls are supposedly the same but also able to mimic powers (most regularly, the FF, but that's just convenient). Marvel has even shown some confusion on that line between Skrull & Super Skrull in the past in the comics. Not really much of a big deal in publishing since the worst that happens is a bunch of geeks start arguing about power sets & junk. Whatever. Nobody cares. The problem is though, this isn't a situation where only geeks will be arguing about it. Fox & Disney obviously have some animosity. The minute Marvel tries to use a Skrull doing anything more than shapeshifting (and as we've established, that doesn't really make them terribly formidable), or maybe even less than that, Fox will sue. And it will go to court. Release dates and hundreds of millions in movie investment, potentially a billion in revenue, and everything else ends up in limbo & at the whim of a judge who doesn't necessarily understand or give a about the differences between a Skrull or a Super Skrull, much less what a Skrull even is. And that judge is going to be the one deciding the fate of a billion dollar movie. That's why Marvel backed off of using Skrulls. Not because they don't have the rights, but because it was easier to use a different, yet similar race in place of the Skrulls, and call it a day. That's why they also likely won't use the Skrulls anytime soon. Not because they don't own the rights, but because of the murkiness between where the line is between Skrull and Super Skrull & fighting the inevitable lawsuit from Fox not being worth the time/money/effort. TL;DR version - Marvel has 1/2 of the rights to Skrulls but because Fox has the rights to Super Skrull, it's not worth the inevitable lawsuit from Fox for Marvel to actually use the Skrulls.

They're different situations. Hulk is an issue of Marvel having Film rights and Universal having Distribution rights. Hulk solo film? Marvel makes it. Universal distributes it. Money gets split up. Hulk guest-star movie or ensemble movie? Marvel makes it, Disney distributes it. Disney keeps all the money. Namor is an issue of Universal having both the Film & Distribution rights (same as the Ang Lee Hulk movie), but requiring Marvel creative control involvement to do anything. Post-Disney-acquisition, Marvel has no interest in being involved in the production of non-Disney-distributed movies for financial reasons. They only make pennies on the dollar that they would for their own characters. So it's essentially a case of Marvel waiting out the Universal rights to Namor (if possible, I don't know when the expiration date of the rights hits) though I have heard mention of it over the past few years that Marvel had or was going to be shortly getting the rights back. Same way the Fox/DD, & the LGF/Punisher/Ghost Rider rights issues reverted.

A quick check of the headlines on Yahoo showed a number of stories about the series, so it's got to have at least some mainstream appeal. Not to mention entertainment sites & blogs talking about it, the #Daredevil trending on Twitter most of the weekend, and other places that it's shown up. Is it having the same kind of cultural impact as Avengers did when it hit theaters? No. But is it having a bigger impact that pretty much any other Netflix show outside of House of Cards & OITNB? I believe so. And I think the numbers will show that if we ever see anything about it. Also, it is fairly easily found without searching. On the "recommended for you" screen, at least everywhere I've seen, it's the banner image at the top.

I'm also of the opinion that this show has no annoying characters. I think they all have distinct personalities & fill certain roles very well. Maybe a little clichéd in the story-arc approach to the series with but still very VERY good. I especially like Karen. She's a little naïve on protecting herself when she decided it was time to jump in the pool with sharks for the first time, but has managed to save herself more often than not. She's not some delicate flower that DD has to save over and over. And I think Foggy is great comic relief without being slapstick-y. He's just a regular dude with some "compensating for inadequacies with comedy" issues that reacts in a pretty legit manner to a lot of things.

Universal owns the DISTRIBUTION rights to Hulk. Marvel owns the character. Essentially, if Marvel wants to make a Hulk movie, Disney can't distribute it. They have to give Universal that chunk of the money. But Universal can't use the character without Marvel approval. Soooo... unless Marvel can get the distribution rights to Hulk back, they will continue to not make Hulk movies because they have 10,000 other characters to mine for movie material that Disney gets to keep 100% of the money on. However, if someone came to Disney/Marvel tomorrow with an idea for a Hulk movie that will make them more money in profit (even taking into account Universal taking their chunk) than any other movie they could make would generate, they'll be in production next week. If they can make a guaranteed billion dollars on it even after Universal's chunk is taken out? They'll be filming in 6 weeks. But since there's not such thing as billion dollar guaranteed movie & Marvel has easily 1000 characters that they can stuff into a movie and make about the same total box office as a Hulk movie and they won't have to give Universal any of it, they won't be making a Hulk movie anytime soon.

You have to imagine that Netflix is absolutely loving this investment. The twitter & tumblr-verses are pretty much losing their mind over this series. I don't know how much they paid Marvel for it, but just the positive word-of-mouth is on par with House of Cards & Orange is the New Black. There's almost nothing bad being said about it.

I'd also love to see a Phase II of this look like something like this: DD S2 Heroes for Hire (Luke/Danny/Jessica) S1 Moon Knight S1 (can also substitute Punisher in if necessary) Daughters of the Dragon S1 Midnight Sons S1 (with Blade & a Ghost Rider & maybe a few other characters)

Combination of new subscribers, subscriber retention & view counts, and throwing them into some sort of algorithm, if I had to bet. Netflix probably has projected new subscriber & subscriber retention rates that they can use as a "baseline". Add to that watch-rate tracking to determine if it's an issue of correlation or causation is probably what they look into if those "baseline" numbers get skewed up or down during a new-release period. In response to those asking about season 2: Unfortunately as it stands right now it has already been announced that season 2 a no for the time being. They are moving on to the other Marvel properties first (the next being AKA Jessica Jones, followed by Luke Cage, and lastly Iron Fist). There is talks / rumours that they want to do a Defenders show, but only if the previous four do well. A "6-episode mini-series" was included in the Marvel/Netflix contract as it was signed. To my recollection, this mini-series was not an "optional 6-episode mini-series" but just a 6-episode mini-series. Which means that, unless something monumentally flops between now & then & Netflix says "nope, we'll pass", we're getting a Defenders series. (But that would let Marvel then theoretically shop it to another network since they'd already done the groundwork on Netflix dime with the 4 lead-in series, allowing them to show it on ABC or something) We're also getting 2 series per year as it's presently scheduled unless there's a production cluster*spoon*. DD & Jessica Jones in 2015, Luke Cage & Iron Fist in 2016, with Defenders having no set release date at this time (likely 2017 tho). Which means we may get DD Season 2 in late 2017 if everything goes well with the other 3 series & 1 mini-series.

Combination of new subscribers, subscriber retention & view counts, and throwing them into some sort of algorithm, if I had to bet. Netflix probably has projected new subscriber & subscriber retention rates that they can use as a "baseline". Add to that watch-rate tracking to determine if it's an issue of correlation or causation is probably what they look into if those "baseline" numbers get skewed up or down during a new-release period.

Look at the seller info tho. It actually kinda almost jives with the eBay seller info. Though I still don't trust Russians.

Where do you see Christos Gage in the credits? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322312/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast Not trying to be argumentative… Just curious. They mention it on his Wiki but I don't see him in the credits. I've tried to catch a lot of the comic names- there are a few. I still find it odd that Bendis isn't more involved… I also find it funny that John Romita is credited as "Johnny Romita." FYI, just finished episode 9 (Speak of the Devil) & saw that Christos Gage & Ruth Gage were listed as "staff writers" in the credits. And I know I'v noticed it on a couple others at least.

Where do you see Christos Gage in the credits? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322312/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast Not trying to be argumentative… Just curious. They mention it on his Wiki but I don't see him in the credits. I've tried to catch a lot of the comic names- there are a few. I still find it odd that Bendis isn't more involved… I also find it funny that John Romita is credited as "Johnny Romita." No, I get you. Nothing argumentative implied. I noticed it on about 3 different episodes. When you get to the credits at the end of the episode, it notes "staff writers" and had "Christos Gage & Ruth Gage" right under it. It gets its own credit card. I was confused as well when I didn't see them getting IMDB credits. I'm not sure if it's a problem with IMDB or how "staff writing' credits work or what, but it's in the actual credits on a few of the episodes. I thought I'd mis-read them at first, rewound & checked & yep... Christos N. Gage & Ruth Gage. I'll check which ones they were once I'm done with the series & have a chance to scan to the credits again.

I'm betting he spends a lot of time convincing people psychically that they don't see his skin as purple to keep the show from looking quite so hokey. But when you see him via surveillance camera or something, you see his skin as purple.

Know when I realized that Marvel really finally figured out this TV format thing the way they have movies? When I saw the credits. The 2 listed as "staff writers" are the husband/wife paring of the Gage's. They both really got most of their start working on Law & Order: SVU. But Cristos jumped into comics, starting with a few Wildstorm books before moving over to Marvel. Marvel seriously looked in their bullpen of comic writers already working for them, found the guy that had both comic writing experience & tv crime drama experience (who also happened to have a wife that fit this criteria as well) and said "wanna do our superhero crime tv drama series?". They used common sense, picked the right people that already happened to work for them & said "this is entirely in your wheelhouse. run with it" instead of doing the typical Hollywood hemming & hawing & complicating decisions. Just "oh look at this person who understands the source material AND the medium it's being presented in. Let's just hire them."

I still have that base. I sometimes think about how much GI Joe stuff I have sitting around but it's still all in storage. Some day, I'll actually dig it out.

4 episodes in and good god is this show just... brutal. Definitely a new side of the MCU that's really really interesting to explore.

I'm actually rooting for the Sens and Bruins right now Sens I'm good with. Boston on the other hand? Well.... let's just say that it's a beautiful city which I wish was devoid of its inhabitants. Flyers fan here so anyone but the Pens (thumbs u Assumed it was going to be that or the Caps. !

Yes. She was Sierra on Dollhouse.

I'm actually rooting for the Sens and Bruins right now Sens I'm good with. Boston on the other hand? Well.... let's just say that it's a beautiful city which I wish was devoid of its inhabitants.

Only 2 episodes in. Had to stop to watch the cluster*spoon* that is the Pens game. The ending of episode 2 was just downright brutal. The lighting & cinematography of this show is exceptional. It's just everything I could have ever wanted. It's like Arrow on steroids without the teen CW soap opera stuff.