Filming for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones Season 2 may have been underway for a couple of months now but not much is known about the inner workings of Daredevil Season 3 and Iron Fist Season 2 apart from that they’re actually happening. As soon as Daredevil Season 2 ended, Netflix quickly renewed the show for a third season and announced it ASAP with a cool teaser. Apart from that and a very general quote from Charlie Cox last April, we don’t have specific details to go on. Well, that’s about to change now as we can definitely report that the much-awaited third season of Daredevil will begin filming in October of this year, specifically during the month’s later weeks, according to our source close to the production. Just in time for Halloween.

As we mentioned above, the only thing we knew about ‘Ol Hornhead’s 4th appearance in the MCU aside from Season 3 being greenlit was Charlie’s previous comments about the production schedule back in April when he was being interviewed on a UK radio show:

I do that later in the year. We’ll go back and do that.

Now that we finally have a production month in mind, we have a better idea on how the Marvel Netflix timetable could look like in the next several months. It normally takes one Marvel Netflix season at least 9 months to produce from start date to post-production to its release (6 months for filming. 3 for post-production and marketing). So if Daredevil Season 3 begins in October, we can probably expect them to finish production around July of next year. Now, because the sophomore seasons of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are already halfway done and will likely take precedence in the release schedule, we wouldn’t count on seeing Daredevil Season 3 as soon as that 9-month production period ends. Shooting Luke Cage Season 1 finished almost at the same time as the Daredevil Season 2 but we didn’t see the hero of Harlem debut until August of last year. So the 2018 Marvel Netflix release schedule we see is this: Jessica Jones sometime in the spring, Luke Cage in the summer, and Daredevil in the fall. So pretty much like how the current 2017 schedule looks like. Iron Fist is said to start production in December with an estimated September end date. We wouldn’t have any problem with Netflix shoving that in the winter for our consumption. One Defenders show for every quarter fam!

Another thing that should be of note is the recent story we ran on the acceleration of production with these shows. At the end of July, Deadline reported a total of 23 Marvel Netflix episodes would be added to overall episode count Marvel TV has had with the city of New York in the year of 2017. That 23-episode was attributed to the upcoming productions of Daredevil and Iron Fist, leading fans to speculate that one of these shows may be cutting down a few episodes from their season (it’s also near-impossible to finish filming a season of TV in 3 months). If Daredevil ends up trimming their 13-episodes to 10, then an earlier production end date should be expected. Our Defenders guru Brooklyn Wallace thinks that season episodes won’t necessarily be trimmed down but instead will remain the same for the most part and that Deadline’s quote about 23 more episodes for 2017 pertains to the city’s fiscal year which runs through June/July of next year. You can hear them talk about it in this episode of the MCUExchange Podcast.

And with production starting just a few months away, we can probably expect some casting news real soon. So make sure to stay tuned here, True Believers! And while you’re at it, please do check out our latest MCU Supercut chronicling the 2-year journey towards The Defenders. It’s the best primer for those looking to prepare themselves for Friday!