Development In October 2013,
Deadline Hollywood reported that
Marvel Television was preparing four drama series and a miniseries, totaling 60 episodes, to present to
video on demand services and cable providers, with
Netflix,
Amazon, and
WGN America expressing interest. A few weeks later, it was announced that Marvel Television and
ABC Studios would provide Netflix with live action series centered around
Daredevil,
Jessica Jones,
Luke Cage, and
Iron Fist, leading up to a miniseries based on the
Defenders. In November 2015, Marvel Comics'
editor-in-chief Joe Quesada stated there was no apprehension from Marvel in changing the line up of the Defenders from the "classic" original line-up (
Doctor Strange,
Hulk,
Namor and
Silver Surfer) because "to the world at large, no one knows who the Defenders are. So the idea of taking the concept and name and applying it to [the
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)] feels wholly natural" adding there was "a wonderful concept" behind why the group would form in the MCU and why they would be called the Defenders. In April 2016, it was announced that
Douglas Petrie and
Marco Ramirez, the showrunners for the
second season of
Daredevil, would serve as showrunners and executive producers on ''Marvel's The Defenders
. Daredevil'' creator
Drew Goddard also serves as an executive producer on the miniseries, along with Karim Zreik, Cindy Holland, Allie Goss, Alison Engel, Kris Henigman,
Alan Fine,
Stan Lee,
Joe Quesada, Jim Chory, and Marvel Television head
Jeph Loeb.
S. J. Clarkson, director of the miniseries' first two episodes, also serves as an executive producer on the first episode. In July 2016, Loeb confirmed that the miniseries would consist of eight episodes, and stated that Petrie and Ramirez would consult with
Melissa Rosenberg,
Cheo Hodari Coker, and
Scott Buck—the showrunners of
Jessica Jones,
Luke Cage, and
Iron Fist, respectively—on how their characters would act; the other showrunners read each of the scripts for
The Defenders and provided insight into each individual character's world. On this collaboration, Petrie said of Rosenberg specifically that she was "wonderful because she's in this position of being a fellow artist and letting us do what we do, but at the same time loving her character and being protective of her character and wanting us to get it right". Rosenberg said that she and the other showrunners "felt really included in the process". Loeb compared this relationship to
Joss Whedon consulting with the filmmakers of the MCU's
Phase One films before directing the crossover film
The Avengers (2012). At the start of filming in October 2016, Petrie left the series as co-showrunner. Loeb explained, "We got to a point where the scripts were done, and we wanted Marco to continue, and Doug pursued other avenues."
Writing By late May 2016, Petrie and Ramirez had turned in a completed story for the miniseries, based on a "very bare-bones structure" from Loeb. Petrie and Ramirez went through a "trapeze act" to have the story work for viewers who had not seen the previous series, while also not have redundant moments of exposition for those who had. Petrie said the miniseries would be a "detour" for the characters, allowing them to return to the worlds of their own series at the end, making it equivalent to
Daredevil season 2.5,
Luke Cage season 1.5,
Jessica Jones season 1.5, and
Iron Fist season 1.5. Loeb compared the miniseries to the
Olympics, where "you get to know all of these athletes in their various sports [and then] they're going to get together", while Coker further compared it to the forming of the
Wu-Tang Clan or
Voltron. Ramirez and Petrie wanted the project to feel earned, grounded, and topical like the individual series, rather than "a corporate mandate". Goddard noted that each of the individual series have different tones, and combining them for the miniseries created a different one. Finding this new tone was the most challenging aspect of the project for Ramirez. Scenes in the early episodes were created to feel like the "most optimal versions" of each individual series, using visual and sonic elements from each that are slowly combined as the miniseries goes on. Loeb cautioned against the "easy comparison" to
The Avengers, noting that lessons would be taken from that crossover such as how that team did not come together right away, but unlike the
Avengers in the film, the Defenders do not operate out of one location such as
Avengers Tower or have matching costumes.
The Dirty Dozen (1967),
Seven Samurai (1954), and other films "where characters came together who did not want to come together" were bigger influences on the project than
The Avengers. Choosing an antagonist for the miniseries was another challenge, according to Ramirez. Loeb did not want a villain like the aliens from
The Avengers because these are "street level heroes [who] come from a very real place", but each of the Defenders has been shown to be "really powerful" in their individual series and the antagonist would have to prove a challenge for the four of them together. Ramirez also felt that the antagonist should be a common denominator rather than having individual villains combining from each series. They settled on the overarching organization of the Hand, and have the characters following individual investigations that lead them to converge on the same location. It was subsequently important to Ramirez that the Hand be destroyed by the end of the miniseries, to give it a definitive ending and to allow the individual characters, especially Iron Fist, to move on to new stories and adversaries. To give something unexpected to the audience, the focus of the story is ultimately revealed to be Elektra Natchios, and her journey of rejecting the people in her life who have told her what to do. This includes her mentor Stick and the miniseries' apparent central antagonist Alexandra, both of whom she murders, as well as Daredevil. Ramirez said that the theme of "having to embrace the identity you want" also applies to the four Defenders. He added that Elektra murdering Alexandra made more sense than one of the Defenders doing it, as the writers felt that none of the Defenders were murderous and would have to be pushed into doing it. Regarding where the miniseries leaves the Defenders, Ramirez compared their relationship to "people who were on the same bus when it got in an accident ... it's kind of like, 'This was a great adventure to have with you, I'd be okay with seeing you again, I'd also be okay with never seeing you again. The final image of
The Defenders, in which Murdock wakes up with a nun by his side, is an homage to a panel from the
Daredevil story arc "
Born Again" (1986). The nun calling for "Maggie" is an implied reference to
Murdock's mother, which Ramirez would not confirm at the time of miniseries' release. He did note that this scene along with several others from Daredevil's story in the miniseries was a direct homage to the comics, and that this panel from "Born Again" was one of his favorite Daredevil panels. Ramirez explained that the scene was included because a
third season of
Daredevil had already been announced, and they did not want to make the audience think they "were trying to cheat them or convince them of something that's not happening".
Casting At the end of May 2014,
Charlie Cox was cast as
Matt Murdock / Daredevil for
Daredevil. In December 2014,
Krysten Ritter was cast as
Jessica Jones and
Mike Colter was cast as
Luke Cage for
Jessica Jones, with Colter also headlining
Luke Cage. In February 2016,
Finn Jones was reported to be cast as
Danny Rand / Iron Fist for
Iron Fist, being confirmed the following month. They also confirmed that Cox, Ritter, Colter, and Jones would all reprise their roles to star in
The Defenders. In March 2016,
Élodie Yung, who portrays
Elektra Natchios in
Daredevil, expressed interest in appearing in
The Defenders as an antagonist, and
Eka Darville said a month later that he would reprise his
Jessica Jones role of
Malcolm Ducasse in
The Defenders. In September,
Simone Missick said she would be reprising the role of
Misty Knight from
Luke Cage in the miniseries. After production began in October, it was confirmed that Darville, Missick, and Yung would appear, alongside
Daredevil actors
Deborah Ann Woll as
Karen Page,
Elden Henson as
Foggy Nelson, and
Scott Glenn as
Stick;
Jessica Joness
Rachael Taylor as
Trish Walker; and
Iron Fists
Jessica Henwick as
Colleen Wing.
Ramón Rodríguez also reprises his
Iron Fist role as
Bakuto, while
Rosario Dawson returns as
Claire Temple from all of the previous Marvel Netflix series. At
New York Comic Con in October,
Sigourney Weaver was announced to be playing the main antagonist of the miniseries, later revealed to be Alexandra. The producers had referred to the character as "a Sigourney Weaver type" for four months before Loeb contacted her about the project. Additionally,
J. Mallory McCree recurs as Cole;
Michelle Federer and
Chloë Levine portray Michelle and Lexi Raymond; and
Ron Simons appears as police captain Strieber.
Babs Olusanmokun and Yutaka Takeuchi portray Sowande and Murakami, respectively, both being leaders of the Hand. Other actors reprising their roles for the miniseries include
Daredevils
Wai Ching Ho as Madame
Gao,
Peter McRobbie as Father
Paul Lantom,
Amy Rutberg as
Marci Stahl, and Susan Varon as
Josie;
Jessica Jones Carrie-Anne Moss as
Jeri Hogarth and Nichole Yannetty as
Nicole; and
Rob Morgan as
Turk Barrett, from previous Marvel Netflix series.
Design Director
S. J. Clarkson, cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd, production designer Loren Weeks, and costume designer Stephanie Maslansky worked together to create distinct color palettes for each of the characters, maintaining the looks from their individual series, rather than attempting to blend the looks of all the different series for the miniseries. Maslansky explained that the palettes were used for the lighting, sets and locations, and costumes for the lead characters as well as extras. When the characters begin to crossover, so do the colors, and decisions were made regarding which colors come to the foreground and which are seen less on a scene-by-scene basis. The series' title sequence, designed by Elastic, evokes the work that the company did for the series
True Detective by recreating the characters of the show out of elements of its setting: the sequence depicts the four Defenders out of colored topographical maps of New York City, showing the different areas of the city that each of them come from.
Cinematography Clarkson, who also directed for
Jessica Jones, said that series is "very dark and very steely and very blue" while
Daredevil focused more on red, and so these were emphasized early on. When Murdock and Jones meet, they are in a "steely gray-blue" room to indicate that it is Jones's world, with Knight there wearing a
Luke Cage-appropriate tan color, and Murdock entering and letting red into the room to show the connecting of the two characters. Clarkson was inspired by New York-set films such as
The French Connection (1971),
Shaft (1971), and
Serpico (1973) when establishing the look of the miniseries. Lloyd began work on the miniseries several weeks before the start of filming, taking the development work that Clarkson had already done for the project and refining it; he avoided pushing the different colors so far that they made the scenes look unrealistic, and noted that red can be an overwhelming hue on camera so limited this for the Daredevil scenes by just using it as an accent. Lloyd did not want to recreate the techniques used on the individual series that he did not work on, and instead focused on the specific looks that Clarkson desired. For Cage's scenes, Lloyd was inspired by
Harris Savides work on
American Gangster (2007), and for Iron Fist he looked to
Wong Kar-wai's
The Grandmaster (2013). Rather than dedicate a significant amount of time to color grading the footage for the project in post-production, Lloyd opted to try and create as much of the desired color palette look as possible in-camera so that he could send his scenes with some written notes to colorist Tony D'Amore of
Deluxe's Encore to complete the work while Lloyd was on set. D'Amore's work was challenging in scenes that combined multiple characters as he would have to adjust specific areas of each frame depending on where the characters were. He also had to create different color grades for the
high dynamic range and
standard dynamic range versions of the show that are released on Netflix. After her work on
Jessica Jones, Clarkson was most comfortable working in that more grounded world and instinctively knew what lighting and camera angles to use. She was less comfortable with the world of
Iron Fist and portraying the more mythological elements of that series. During pre-production on
The Defenders, filming on
Iron Fist was taking place. When a director from that series was not available to return to the production to reshoot a scene, Clarkson was asked to direct the new take. Clarkson found this experience "incredibly valuable", giving her a chance to work with Jones and experience the tone of his series ahead of the beginning of filming for
The Defenders. Clarkson and Lloyd also learned the technical requirements for depicting the character's Iron Fist based on the process used by that series' crew, along with how the effect of Cage's abilities were created.
Costumes Maslansky, who designed the costumes for the previous Marvel Netflix series, had the choice between designing for
The Defenders or the
first season of
The Punisher due to a scheduling conflict between the two productions, and chose to work on
The Defenders so she could create the culmination of all her work on the previous series. She described the process of highlighting the individual character's color palettes as a celebration, looking to infuse the costumes with red for Daredevil, navies and lavender for Jessica Jones, olive green for Iron Fist, and gold "Harlem colors" for Luke Cage. The characters' costumes were kept consistent with their individual series, though for Daredevil's superhero costume, which is created by Hargate Costumes in Los Angeles, the helmet was changed for
The Defenders to having a matte surface that was less shiny than in
Daredevil. The end of the season introduces a new costume for Iron Fist, an homage to the tracksuit that the character wears in the comics. Maslansky felt that the full tracksuit was "very '70s, a little too wise-guy, Italian mafia", and so designed a track jacket that used the classic design and colors of green with gold stripes, and paired it with cargo pants. For Alexandra and the Hand, the executive producers suggested the color white as a repurposing of the phrase "the light at the end of the tunnel" given the group are immortal supervillains. Alexandra's costumes also feature metallic elements to suggest that she was more of a warrior in a past life and has that "fierceness or a power within her". In general, her costumes are European inspired and of "an older world" to create "a global feeling to her wardrobe, very lush ... her wardrobe reflects that kind of ancientness". The resurrected Elektra receives a new costume inspired by her comics appearance. Because it would look out of place on the streets of New York, Maslansky also designed a coat for her to cover this up that was inspired by ''
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) and The Matrix'' (1999), and meant to appeal to Alexandra's taste in clothing.
Filming Marvel announced in February 2014 that the miniseries would be filmed in
New York City, with Marvel Comics'
Editor-in-chief Joe Quesada stating in April that the show would be filming in areas of
Brooklyn and
Long Island City that still look like the old
Hell's Kitchen, in addition to sound stage work. In April 2016, Cox confirmed a late 2016 start for filming, following the conclusion of production on
Iron Fist in October 2016. Filming for
The Defenders began on October 31, under the
working title Group Therapy. Lloyd previously served as cinematographer for the first season of
Daredevil and the first episode of
Jessica Jones. Due to the production demands, he brought his long-time second unit cinematography collaborator Jim McMillan onto the miniseries to help balance the workload for when episodes were filming simultaneously. Lloyd was the primary cinematographer for
The Defenders, but McMillan is credited for several episodes on which he did the most work. Lloyd described the production of the miniseries as being more similar to a film than the previous Marvel Netflix television series due to the scheduling requirements of the larger cast and the fact that episodes would not always be shot in order due to location requirements. The schedule also demanded more days per episode for filming, so the overall production was not as significantly shorter as Lloyd had expected given the episode count is lower than the usual Netflix order of 13. Additional filming locations for the miniseries included
Upper West Side, Hell's Kitchen, and
Williamsburg, Brooklyn,
Stapleton, Staten Island,
St. Nicholas Park, the lobby and exterior of
Atelier ("Midland Circle"), the
Central Park Mall, the rooftop gardens at
Rockefeller Center, the
Downtown Manhattan Heliport,
240 Centre Street in Manhattan, the Appel Room at
Time Warner Center, and the
New York City Municipal Archives. It was filmed
back-to-back with the
second season of
Jessica Jones, potentially overlapping with that production. Filming
wrapped on March 19, 2017. Lloyd shot the miniseries with the
RED Weapon camera. Clarkson used a set of vintage
Panavision lenses for her two episodes which she had used on
Jessica Jones. The use of these lenses created issues for the series' camera team and created supply issues with Panavision, with Lloyd noting that though the use of lenses such as these are popular, they are difficult to work with. So, for the rest of the miniseries Lloyd returned to the modern
Arri Master Prime lenses that he had used on
Daredevil, which he said did not create a significant difference in look for the miniseries. The miniseries used a lot of
steadicam work, so much that they essentially had two A-camera steadicam operators working simultaneously. Clarkson also planned out multiple cinematic "hero" shots which required complex camera movements and a lot of
technocrane work. Clarkson tried to have as much individual time with each hero as possible to help the audience understand who each character was if they had not watched all of the individual series. In addition to using color to show the characters were coming together, Clarkson tried to "twist" the episodes such as in a moment in the first episode where Cage leaves an apartment and puts his head up, which cuts to Jones entering a flat and putting her head down. Clarkson said on this, "I tried to do transitions that connected them ... so you constantly felt these world were eventually going to come together." She also used trains in transitions to show that the characters were just a train-ride away from each other, and shot the characters with the same lenses and framing to indicate that they live in the same world even with different color palettes. Particularly difficult sequences for Clarkson to shoot included the opening of the miniseries, which features a sword fight in a wet tunnel with water on set causing issues for the crew; the introduction of Matt Murdock in a courtroom, which was shot in a single take as a reference to the single take fight sequences that the character has in his series; and the earthquake scene, which combined practical effects such as "pulling all these things with strings and making everything move" with planning for visual effects and could have come across as "hokey" if done wrong. Clarkson looked to film the action sequences in the different ways that the other series had, such as the "incredibly choreographed and ... almost balletic" fights from
Daredevil, or the more "scrappy, messy" sequences from
Jessica Jones. For Cage, Clarkson felt that he is "this solid, central figure that is bulletproof, is unbreakable", so she often filmed him with a static camera or steady camera, while Iron Fist was filmed in a lot more movements and with handheld cameras. The fight between the two, in the second episode, combined those two styles. In response to criticisms of the fight sequences in
Iron Fist, Jones noted that he had more experience with the fighting on
The Defenders due to having completed the first season of his series before beginning work on the miniseries, and had more time to learn the choreography because he was in less scenes for the ensemble project over his individual series and could rehearse in between filming. Additionally, he noted the different stunt team and directors for
The Defenders allowed for improvements to be made, calling the choreography of the miniseries' action "a lot slicker" and more cohesive. However, the miniseries still had a limited television schedule, which proved especially challenging for sequences in which the Defenders all fought together, with Cox noting that on his series it is usually just him fighting stunt-men while
The Defenders required all of the hero actors to learn the choreography and work around each in a limited time. They generally had a day to learn a fight, but choreography would also be changed on set.
Music In February 2017,
John Paesano was announced as the composer for the miniseries, after previously composing for the first two seasons of
Daredevil. Paesano felt "there was more license to push the envelope and lean a bit more into the orchestral colors" of each character since they were "dealing with outright superheroes that audience is familiar with". His score, which was a hybrid of synthesizers and a 30-piece orchestra, borrows the "color" of each character's themes from their individual series "to remind viewers of their individual personalities". The music of
Johannes Brahms is used throughout the miniseries, first in the second episode where Alexandra is shown listening to a performance of his
First String Quartet by the Aeolus Quartet. The scene establishes Alexandra to be "a Brahms aficionado". The composer's
First Symphony is then heard as the leaders of the Hand prepare to attack the Defenders in the miniseries' fifth episode. Finally, Alexandra listens to a defective recording of Brahms'
Tragic Overture. A soundtrack album featuring Paesano's score was released digitally by
Hollywood Records and Marvel Music on August 17, 2017. All music composed by John Paesano:
Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins The Defenders is the final series of the initially ordered Netflix series, after
Daredevil,
Jessica Jones,
Luke Cage and
Iron Fist. In August 2014,
Vincent D'Onofrio,
Wilson Fisk in
Daredevil, stated Marvel Television planned to "branch out" after the Netflix series. In March 2015, Loeb confirmed that there was potential for the series to crossover with the
MCU films and the
ABC television series since they are all set in the same universe, but said they would each remain self-contained at first because "the audience needs to understand who all of these characters are and what the world is before you then start co-mingling". Midland Circle, where the four Defenders all initially meet, was previously mentioned in the first and second seasons of
Daredevil and the
first season of
Iron Fist. It is revealed to be an operation of the Hand, who bought the building to search for the life substance hidden beneath it. Ramirez said that after showing the Hand purchasing the building in the first season of
Daredevil, and introducing the hole they were digging in
Daredevils second season, it was up to the writers on
The Defenders to decide what would be in the hole. Ramirez felt that having the skeleton of a dead dragon be the source of the substance the Hand sought was the best way to tie the different series together, including because it references the first season of
Daredevil where Gao sells a drug made from crushed dragon's bone. The miniseries also references the events of
The Avengers. == Marketing ==