NYCC 2016: EP Jeph Loeb & Showrunner Scott Buck Talk Marvel’s Iron FistPosted by Wilson Morales
October 10, 2016
During the 2016 New York Comic Con, fans finally got a chance to see and meet the cast of Netflix & Marvel’s next comic book TV series, Iron Fist, which will debut on March 17, 2017 at 12:01am PT in all territories where Netflix is available.
For the TV series, Marvel’s Iron Fist follows Danny Rand (Finn Jones), who returns to New York City after being missing for years. He fights against the criminal element corrupting New York City with his incredible kung-fu mastery and ability to summon the awesome power of the fiery Iron Fist. The cast also includes Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing, David Wenham as Harold Meachum, Jessica Stroup as Joy Meachum, and Tom Pelphrey as Ward Meachum.
Marvel’s Jessica Jones star Carrie-Anne Moss will also reprise her role of lawyer Jeri Hogarth and it’s widely rumored that Luke Cage star Simone Missick will also reprise her as Misty Knight.
Iron Fist is the fourth of the epic live-action adventure series (Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Marvel’s Luke Cage which are now streaming, all leading up to the teaming of the main characters in Marvel’s The Defenders) to premiere only on Netflix.
Prior to its panel discussion, Marvel Television’s Executive Vice President Jeff Loeb and Iron Fist show runner Scott Buck spoke with Blackfilm.com and a handful of journalists on the structure of the series.
What can you say at this point regarding Iron Fist? What can fans expect to see on TV that’s going to different or the same from the comic books they read?
Jeph Loeb: Well, as with all of our Netflix shows it’s obviously very real. It’s very grounded. What we were really interested, from the very beginning, was exploring who is Danny Rand. This is a character who’s a little younger than some of the other heroes that we’ve seen so far.
We open with a very simple premise, which is, at the age of 10, Danny vanished off the face of the earth. The world believes that the son of a billionaire is gone. When he reappears at the beginning of the show, and he’s 25 years old. He announces, “I’m here.” Has no proof, has no identity, has no DNA.
One of the things that’s fantastic about the show is, it’s very much a mystery. It’s very much a, “how do you go about proving who you are when there’s no way to do that.” That’s not just the story, that’s also the theme of it, which is, “how do you go about proving who you are when no one knows,” including yourself, “what’s happened to you.”
You said grounded. In Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, they all kind of lend themselves to that “grounded” feeling. Whereas Iron Fist is more out there. He’s more mystical. How did you go about blending that or did you use a grounded approach to the show?
Scott Buck: Yeah. I mean, it certainly was one of the challenges of the show. We approached it all through character. You know, what would it be like to be Danny Rand in that situation? I mean, people don’t even believe you’re Danny Rand to begin with. How much of that side of yourself can you show the world, without making yourself seem even crazier, potentially. It is absolutely something we do try to touch on in a real way.
Jeph Loeb: Also, it gave us an opportunity in the same kind of way that we’ve been trying to do is … You know, we’ve been saying from the very beginning that New York City is the 5th Defender. We’ve seen Hell’s Kitchen. We’ve seen Harlem. What we really haven’t seen is the high-end world, the financial world of New York, which is such a big part of it. As Stevie Wonder once said, “Skyscrapers and everything.
That kind of billionaire existence, high-level corporation, big pharma, things like that, we get a chance to put our little Marvel mark on, and see what happens.
Is that going to be the theme that you’re coming into? Obviously, the Netflix shows all have a social injustice, almost at the center of them. Daredevil deals a lot with vigilantism, and gentrification of areas. Jessica Jones has dealt with abuse and recovery. We’ve seen Luke Cage dropped, and it’s a lot about street-level violence and institutionalized racism in certain points as well. What would you say is that call of Iron Fist for you?
Jeph Loeb: It was to do with a number of things, but, if we had to boil it down, it is a very hard look at the 1%. Or, in this particular case, the 1% of the 1%. How that affects our world on a day-to-day basis.
Now, the character Jeri Hogarth (from Jessica Jones) is going to be in the show. That news has already been announced. In the comics, Jeryn Hogarth ran Danny’s estate. Is she going to play a similar role in Iron Fist? Or, do we get something totally different?
Scott Buck: She has an extremely important role in Danny’s life. I can’t really reveal anything, unfortunately, about it. She’s very integral to our story, and to Danny’s journey.
Jeph Loeb: I think one of the things that’s a lot of fun is, you know, you’ve already met Carrie-Anne Moss’s character. Danny has a very much of a hopeful optimism about him. Carrie-Anne, obviously, lives in a different kind of world. Being able to see those two worlds collide is just the beginning of the many obstacles that he goes through.
It’s one of the things that’s really great about what Scott created, and the extraordinary writing team, is that, it really does build through a series of metaphorical fights, which is very important in a martial arts film. To show how the character needs to grow from the innocent, wide-eyed person, to someone who has to come to terms with, “this is the way the outside world works.” How am I going to make it work for me?
It’s a journey of self, which is something that we really haven’t had a chance to be able to do.
What made Finn Jones the right choice to play Iron Fist?
Scott Buck: We saw him, and I think we all just knew immediately that this was our guy. He’s a slightly younger character than the other Marvel heroes. There’s sort of a youthful optimism to him that Finn himself seems to generate. Underneath that all, there’s some serious “bad ass” attitude that can come out. He just seemed to be able to display all of that when needed, and sometimes all at once. He was very capable of bringing the complexities of the character to life.
