Before Disney Plus, Netflix’s Marvel TV shows were pushing the edge of MCU-adjacent content on streaming, but soon, you won’t be able to watch Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Punisher, or The Defenders on Netflix anymore.
News of the pending removal surfaced earlier today at What’s on Netflix, as viewers noticed flags on the shows in the Netflix app. Spokespeople for Netflix and Disney who declined to be named publicly have confirmed to The Verge that Netflix’s license ends February 28th.
Polygon points out that this shift is coming just after a few characters from the Netflix shows popped up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Charlie Cox brought his Daredevil character into Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Vincent D’Onofrio played Kingpin in the Hawkeye show on Disney Plus.
This brings an end to the partnership that started in 2012 and first hit our TV screens with the premiere of Daredevil on Netflix in 2015. By 2018, all of the shows had been canceled, leaving them in limbo ever since. As now Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos pointed out in a 2017 interview with Reuters, “[t]hat’s why we got into the originals business five years ago.”
There’s no word from either party involved about what might happen to the shows after they leave Netflix, and while my guess is that they will make a return in some form, somewhere, you may want to enjoy them over the next few weeks while you still can.