Jeph Loeb, who runs Marvel Television, has admitted that the cancellation of the Defenders universe on Netflix came as a surprise. We’ve got the quote here…

When fans heard that Iron Fist and Luke Cake were being cancelled, it came as something of a shock. Then, later, we heard that Daredevil was ending too. And then, the final nail in the coffin of the Marvel/Netflix partnership was the cancellation of Jessica Jones and The Punisher, which came a little bit later.

“The hardest part was while the situation at Netflix of which I really can’t go into other than to say that we were blindsided and the things that were to come weren’t finished yet. We weren’t ready to announce that, so there was this space in between it, so it did look like maybe we were going to go out. Then suddenly, we were arising again like the Phoenix.”

The “arising again like the Phoenix” line seems to be a reference to the fact that, after all the cancellations were announced, Loeb still managed to release the final seasons of The Punisher and Jessica Jones, which were already in production, to give Marvel/Netflix fans a final bite of the cherry.

Loeb teases in the same interview that Marvel Television will be producing series for the Disney+ streaming service, which will also host TV-style content from the normally-movie-focused Marvel Studios. The fact that Marvel Studios and Marvel Television, which are separate branches of the larger Marvel company, will both be releasing content on the same platform should be an interesting experiment.

We’ll keep you updated as we hear more about the Marvel Television projects for Disney+. Here’s hoping that Loeb and his cohorts can find a way to bring back Charlie Cox as Daredevil, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, and the rest of the brilliant cast-members that were ditched by Netflix.