Marvel’s latest Netflix collaboration, Jessica Jones, will be notably different from Daredevil.
Jessica Jones is the second show of the Marvel/Netflix collaboration that will include 5 series that explore more street level heroes in New York City. Daredevil, which was the first of these series released, was a dark, gritty adventure in Hell’s Kitchen. While the show was often violent, Matt Murdock (Daredevil) never resorts to killing people giving the series something of a moral center.
Fans of Daredevil or Marvel in general, can expect Jessica Jones to have a different tone from Daredevil. During the 2015 TCA tour, showrunner Melissa Rosenberg described the title character like this (via Indie Wire), “Jessica is about paying rent, getting the next client. She’s dealing with a fairly dark past. She’s trying to get through the day. She’s not really trying to save the city, she’s trying to save her apartment. At her core, she wants to do something good. She wants to contribute to the world. But there are a lot of personality issues for her that can get in the way.”
Matt Murdock was all about trying to saving the city and would grapple with the issues of violence in regular visits to his priest. His daytime job as a lawyer was never about money. Jessica Jones will stand in stark contrast to that. Another notable difference is that Murdock would put on a mask before leading his double life as a hero. Jessica Jones won’t always.
“Jessica Jones is a brawler. She gets drunk, she gets pissed off, and boom, you’re down. She doesn’t wear a costume, she doesn’t have a mask. She’s just who she is,” Rosenberg said. This seems to be in line with the source material for Jessica Jones. The ex-superhero becomes a private investigator while dealing with PTSD from her days as a hero making her a complex hero.
Head of Marvel Television, Jeph Loeb said this about the differences between Daredevil and Jessica Jones, “When we first sat down and started talking about ‘Daredevil,’ what we said was, for all intents and purposes, it was a crime drama first and a superhero show second. One of the things we’ve talked a lot about is that ‘Jessica’ is in many ways a psychological thriller first and then a superhero show second.”
Jessica Jones stars Krysten Ritter as the title character. David Tennant is playing the main antagonist in the series as villain Zebidiah Killgrave. Joining Ritter and Tennant include Carrie-Anne Moss (Vegas), Rachael Taylor (Grey’s Anatomy), Eka Darville (Empire), Erin Moriarty (True Detective), and Mike Colter (The Following) as Luke Cage (Cage will also have his own Netflix series), according to Screen Rant.
The relationship between Ritter and Tennant will be intense. Loeb said, “What you get out of [Jessica Jones] is a sort of hold-your-breath tension as to what’s going to happen. When you see the dynamic between Krysten Ritter and David Tennant. That question of ‘What’s going to happen next?’ and ‘What could happen next?’ and how that’s driven by character is something that is so important to not just the scripts but also the way the show is shot, and the way that everyone reacts, and the way those two react with each other.”
Something that will be similar in Jessica Jones that was a part of Daredevil is the neo-noir feel of the show that focuses on characters and plot in a stylistic way.
Jessica Jones is on track to premiere on Netflix in Fall of 2015. The second season of Daredevil and the next series in the Marvel project, Luke Cage, is set to premiere in 2016.