At this point, ‘The Punisher’ is the last man standing for Marvel at Netflix. (Considering that ‘Jessica Jones’ is a woman.) Most expect that the upcoming second season will be the last, but at least fans will have one final adventure with Jon Bernthal as the deadly vigilante.
Netflix released a new trailer advertising their new original shows and movies arriving in January. While everything else was given a specific release date, ‘The Punisher’ clip doesn’t arrive until the end of the video and concludes with simply the phrase “Coming Soon.” One would assume that this means that ‘The Punisher’ will be released sometime in January, but that Netflix hasn’t picked out a specific date for it. But there is the possibility that ‘The Punisher’ won’t arrive until perhaps February and that Netflix is simply teasing its arrival.
You can watch the video below for yourself and see if you can figure out what this means:
Netflix has been steadily axing its shows made in association with Marvel. So far, ‘Iron Fist’, ‘Luke Cage’ and ‘Daredevil’ have been cancelled. ‘The Punisher’ Season 2 and ‘Jessica Jones’ Season 3 were already either in production or had been completed, so Netflix has not come right out and pulled the plug on them so as not to dampen their reception, but at this point, the writing’s on the wall.
Marvel’s parent company, Disney, is launching its own family-friendly streaming service, Disney+, next year, while at the same time, will acquire a 60% controlling in interest in Netflix’s rival Hulu, so it looks as though Netflix is severing ties with a company that it now views as serious competition.
There is some hope that Disney will revive the cancelled shows elsewhere. Disney+ is out because it is family-friendly and these shows are… not. Hulu may be possible, but Netflix has stated that it will continue offering the existing episodes of these shows for the foreseeable future, which may prevent them from being offered elsewhere.
Stay tuned to an exact release date for ‘The Punisher’ Season 2.
