With Inhumans showrunner Scott Buck in charge, we never really had much faith in Iron Fist being as good as Daredevil and Jessica Jones' early seasons. Unfortunately, those expectations were proven correct, and while the series wasn't all bad, it failed to resonate with most fans of the character.
Season 2 was a definite improvement, but it also took Danny Rand's powers away from him almost immediately. Despite being a baffling creative decision, it was one that culminated with Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing gaining the power of the Iron Fist, setting the stage for a season 3 that never happened (and likely never will).
During a recent interview with Geekscape Podcast, Iron Fist star Finn Jones shared his take on what went wrong with the show, blaming "scheduling conflicts" for a disappointing first season.
"[With] he first season, there were a lot of creative challenges, and it didn’t live up to the expectations, and I think that came down to…really, it came down to scheduling conflicts," he explains. "That season of television was rushed because we had The Defenders that we had to film straight afterwards."
"We had to film The Defenders [and] we had all those other actors locked into that schedule, so we had to film those 13 episodes of television in that set time, and unfortunately, we just didn’t have the time to do what was expected and what was desired, which was a kick-ass, amazing kung fu show and martial arts show."
"And the reason that show failed was because of the time constraints [and] because of bad scheduling," Jones concluded.
We're not sure that's the only reason the series failed, but it sounds like the odds were stacked against Iron Fist from the start. It's no secret Jones had relatively little time to prepare for the role, hence why the fight scenes often underwhelmed.
Moving forward, there's no word on plans for Iron Fist in the MCU, though the expectation is that when the character is eventually rebooted, it will be with an Asian actor taking over the role. Unfortunately, we expect Danny to be one of those Netflix heroes who remains on the shelf for a while yet.
Were you a fan of Netflix's Iron Fist?