Jeph Loeb Pens Letter to Marvel Television Fans After Netflix Cancellations

Jeph Loeb, the Executive Vice President of Marvel Television, penned a letter to fans after the news that Jessica Jones and The Punisher had been canceled by Netflix, effectively bringing their corner of the MCU to a close. When adding in Daredevil, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, it brings the total number of recently canceled shows to five. Six if you want to count their crossover series The Defenders. No matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of canceled TV shows.

Still, there’s talk of the characters living on either on Disney’s own streaming service, Disney+, or Hulu, which Disney owns a large share of. While that may still happen, Loeb took a minute to reflect on what had been done and thanking the devoted fans who made the dream possible.

“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.

And together we were thrilled by stories of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and even the Punisher joined in!

They said it couldn’t be done.

But Marvel assembled amazing teams to write, produce, direct, edit, and score 13 seasons and 161 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…!”

Despite everything, Loeb seems optimistic about future possibilities these characters could have. After all, Marvel is still a box-office powerhouse that shows no signs of slowing down, meaning its almost inevitable these characters will return — in some form, anyway.

(h/t The Futon Critic)