Daredevil Writer Thought Nextflix Series Was 'Too Big to Fail'

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Daredevil Writer on Cancellation: 'I Thought It Was Too Big to Fail'

By Renaldo Matadeen

Published Dec 3, 2018

One of the core members of Daredevil's writing team reveals exactly why no one anticipated the series would get canceled.

While the cancellations of Iron Fist and Luke Cage didn't really surprise anyone due to the lack of praise from fans and critics alike, Daredevil getting canned by Netflix after three seasons did. As it turns out, even the writing team felt blindsided, believing the series was "too big to fail."

"[Showrunner Erik Oleson] got a call asking him to go down to see the Marvel executives, and I jokingly went ‘Ooooooooh,’ like a third grader does when someone gets called to a principal’s office," writer Tamara Becher-Wilkinson said to io9. "Then, he waited for everybody to gather back in the writers’ room and he said, ‘Netflix has decided not to move forward with season four.’ And that’s all I remember, you know. I kind of missed the details because I was, like, so surprised."

Oleson and company were already laying out Season 4, with a pitch made to Netflix, and stars like Deborah Ann Woll and Vincent D'Onofrio looking forward to a new chapter. Well, now it's clear how much of a surprise it was to them all.

"The reviews were so overwhelmingly positive that I thought there was no way they would cancel it. I don’t know how well it does on Netflix or anything like that ... [but] it was surprising to me they would cancel something that was so well received,” she added. "I thought it was too big to fail.”

With the future home of these characters still to be revealed, Becher-Wilkinson believes that, once Jessica Jones and The Punisher airs next year, the Netflix/Marvel partnership will officially be over. “If I was a betting woman, you know, my guess is that it’s the end of the Marvel universe on Netflix," she concluded.

Now available on Netflix, Marvel’s Daredevil Season 3 stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Joanne Whalley as Sister Maggie, Wilson Bethel as Benjamin Poindexter, Jay Ali as Rahul “Ray” Nadeem and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk. Despite the cancellation, the entire series -- including Seasons 1, 2 and 3 -- will remain available on the streaming service.