With the box office earnings of “Avengers: Infinity War,” “Black Panther” and “Thor: Ragnarok,” among many, many more, it would be an understatement to say superhero movies have been the trend in the past decade, primarily thanks to Marvel Studios. However, superhero TV shows don’t seem to have the same level of popularity, thanks primarily to their range of quality. But the most popular of these TV series seem to be the Marvel series on Netflix. That is, the ones that are left. And despite a string of recent cancellations, the folks behind “The Punisher” are hopeful for a new season and might want to bring a couple major guest stars in for Season 3.
“The Punisher” has just launched its second season on Netflix over the weekend, and seems to be as popular as ever. The vengeance-hunting anti-hero Frank Castle, played by Jon Bernthal, made his first appearance in “Daredevil” before going on to getting his own spin-off series. And when speaking in a recent interview with Heroic Hollywood, executive producer Steve Lightfoot revealed he is already thinking ahead to ‘Punisher’ season 3, in which he’d really like to include characters Kingpin and Daredevil.
“Yeah. All those guys are great. Obviously Daredevil and Punisher have a lot of history and story between them in the comic books. So it would be great to dig into some of that. Also villains like the Kingpin who was featured in quite a lot of the Punisher books as well. So it would be fantastic to get some of those guys back into the show if we can make it work,” said the producer.
However, despite Lightfoot’s high hopes for the show, there is controversy over whether ‘Punisher’ will even get a season 3. The first Netflix/Marvel series “Daredevil” had just aired its third season in 2018 before the streaming giant shut down the idea of another, much like it did for fellow Marvel shows “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist.” Many are wondering if the trend will continue onto ‘Punisher.’ When asked about the shutdowns, in a new interview with IndieWire, Marvel television executive vice president Jeph Loeb said that even though Marvel studio would be all set to continue, the ultimate decision for the series comes down to the network.
“It’s an unfortunate reality to any relationship between a network and a studio in that the network always has the right at any time to cancel a show,” Loeb said. “And we’ve been very lucky that our shows have lived on, and that we’ve had the fun, but everyone can name a show that they love that has gotten canceled. But we do, and I think we’ve made it very clear, that this is not our call. This is Netflix’s call.”
Ultimately, we’ll probably know one way or another what fate belies “The Punisher” in the coming weeks, as the streaming service is not known for taking its time with decisions.