In late 2013, Marvel Television and Netflix announced a groundbreaking deal to bring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist to the streaming service, with the plan being for those characters to eventually assemble in The Defenders.
While that eventual crossover drew mixed reviews from fans, the shows were largely successful and ran for multiple seasons (Daredevil even spawned a spin-off with The Punisher, a series that ran for two seasons).
In 2018, Netflix pulled the plug on all those shows in response to Disney launching its own streaming service, Disney+. Marvel Television was also scrapped, with Kevin Feige finally given full control over all things Marvel.
Marvel Television has since been relaunched but is completely separate from the studio once spearheaded by Jeph Loeb under the purview of former Marvel Entertainment Chairman Isaac Perlmutter.
Talking to Variety, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos reflected on the deal and didn't have many positives to share about his experiences with the previous regime at Marvel Television.
"By far, our Marvel deal [in 2013] was the biggest deal in the history of television. No one will ever touch it," he explained. "We committed to five original seasons of TV with no pilots, 13 expensive episodes for each show centered around one character. And then a crossover season. Ultimately, we learned a lot about the entertainment business on that deal."
Asked if he believes the MCU TV shows being produced for Disney+ are a success, Sarandos shared, "I think they are. I mean, I don’t know because they don’t release any numbers."
"On our shows, we were dealing with the old Marvel television regime, which operated independently at Disney. And they were thrifty," he admitted. "And every time we wanted to make the shows bigger or better, we had to bang on them. Our incentives were not well aligned. We wanted to make great television; they wanted to make money. I thought we could make money with great television."
"You want to work with people whose incentives are aligned with yours. When people are producing for you, they’re trying to produce as cheaply as possible. My incentive is to make it as great as possible," Sarandos continued. "That’s a lesson that I take forever."
"As producers, whatever [Marvel] didn’t spend, they kept. So every time we wanted to add something to the show to make it better, it was a fistfight," he concluded.
This isn't overly surprising, especially as Perlmutter was known for being incredibly thrifty and unwilling to spend any more than he deemed necessary. That ultimately played a big role in Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige asking Disney CEO Bob Iger to become a separate entity without the input of Perlmutter or Marvel Entertainment's Creative Committee.
While there was room for improvement with the Defenders slate of TV shows, they were largely successful and, if nothing else, gave us Daredevil...which has since led to Daredevil: Born Again. It's hard to complain too much about that.