Although it wasn’t much of a shock that Netflix opted against a season three renewal for Iron Fist, the news that it was also pulling the plug fellow Marvel show Luke Cage after two seasons certainly proved a tad surprising, as it had been thought that the Mike Colter’s Power Man was a near-lock for a third solo outing.
Given that Netflix doesn’t reveal audience data, it’s difficult to get much insight as to how content performs on the streaming service. However, Jumpshot, a San Francisco-based analytics company which tracks over 5 billion online actions per day across a sample of 100 million U.S. devices, has now revealed some information on the two Marvel shows which, if accurate, makes it pretty clear why the axe has been swung.
According to the figures supplied to Screen Rant, Iron Fist’s audience fell 64% from its first season to its second, while Luke Cage dropped 59%, and viewership for both shows is said to be around a third of that for the second season of Daredevil.
One thing that has likely hurt the numbers this time around is the fact that Netflix has released four full seasons for its Marvel shows in 2018; Luke Cage and Iron Fist’s second seasons came less than three months apart (with Daredevil’s third season arriving a little over a month after Iron Fist).
Compare that to the first seasons – Luke Cage arrived in the same year as Daredevil season two, and Iron Fist the same as Jessica Jones season two and The Defenders – and there’s definitely an argument to be made that there’s simply been too much Marvel content in too short a time-frame, given how much free binge-watching time people have available.
