Punisher Series Meant To Be Separate From Defenders
When the Marvel/Netflix collaborations came to be, the plan was for four shows series to be done. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Then, after all of those were done, they would team up for Defenders. But, during Daredevil Season 02, fans were so happy with Jon Bernthal’s performance as Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, that they wanted to see more. Thus, the two companies agreed to make a Punisher series, which is set to air on Friday.
Now, when the Defenders was filmed (which was well after Daredevil Season 02), there was rumors that Frank would show up to assist them, but he didn’t. And now, with his series debut only days away, people are wondering why the Defenders won’t show up in some shape or form. Well, Showrunner Steve Lightfoot had some ideas on this, and he told it to SyfyWire:
“I guess I could speculate on the reasons for that, but I think from what I understand the original concept for the four characters that became the Defenders was always the plan and the Punisher spun out of that,” he continued. “But very much certainly when I came in the brief was always that it was to be its own show and its own thing separate from that.”
Now, there are going to be some characters from the other show that will come to the series. Mainly Karen Page (from Daredevil), and Turk (from…well, all of them.) So it won’t be without influence, but it just won’t feature the Defenders.