Netflix's lineup of hard-boiled Marvel heroes will finally cross paths when The Defenders hits the streaming service on Friday, but fans shouldn't go in expecting a duplicate of the studio's massively successfully Avengers, according to one of the show's architects.

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In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Marco Ramirez (Daredevil) discussed what inspirations the writers' room drew upon when crafting The Defenders, specifically explaining how the miniseries' tone owes more to classic cinema that either of Joss Whedon's Avengers films.

"When you have literally the footprints that The Avengers had, there's kind of no way to avoid the comparison and no way to avoid referencing it in the writers room," Ramirez said, comparing how the Netflix shows mirrored the trajectory of Marvel's cinematic slate in establishing heroes in solo efforts before eventually joining forces.

"It's an incredible achievement and a great story told really well,"  he continued. "But to me, aside from that, in the formation of the show in the writers room, it was important to me to talk about story templates and influences. We talked about The Dirty Dozen and Seven Samurai. We talked about movies and cinematic stories where characters came together who did not want to come together, who had their own in-fighting but ultimately came together to fight something bad in some way. I would like to think the influences are wide in that way."

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While the tone and inspirations behind the series appear to be different from that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's theatrical entries, one way the Netflix dramas will look to imitate their big-screen counterparts is through phases. Iron Fist star Finn Jones recently teased that The Defenders "feels like the end of Phase One" and "the beginning of another phase."

Arriving Aug. 18 on Netflix as an eight-episode mini series, The Defenders stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Mike Colter as Luke Cage, Finn Jones as Danny Rand, Elodie Yung as Elektra Natchios, Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, Simone Missick as Misty Knight, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth, Scott Glenn as Stick, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing.