‘Iron Fist’ Won’t Follow Source Material

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Before they took to the stage for the Marvel/Netflix panel at NYCC promoting The Defenders and Iron Fist, the cast, showrunner and executive producer of Iron Fist sat down with Collider to talk about the show. According to Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel TV, Iron Fist will have a very different feel to the previous entries into the Marvel/Netflix world.

“First of all, it was always our intent when we set out to tell each of the Netflix stories that they’re part of a piece, but at the same token, you should be able to watch each of them individually. Daredevil is not like Jessica Jones, which is not like Luke, which should not be like Danny. The first part is very exciting to us, and the second part, which is rather obvious, which is because we’re dealing with a character who is younger than the rest of the cast, and who also has a certain kind of optimism and hope about him that brings a certain thing to it. Don’t make any mistake about it, this is Marvel’s foray into martial arts films, and when he opens up a can of whoop-ass, people are going to be super-super excited by what’s happening.”

According to David Wenham, who plays Harold Meachum (the father of Danny’s childhood friends), the show will be influenced by the comic book source material, but won’t follow it to the letter.

“Well, I think not just the characters, but also the narrative within the show, it’s certainly been influenced and based very heavily on the comic books, but both Scott Buck, the showrunner, and Jeph Loeb, “Mr. Marvel,” has taken all those meaty basics, but also then infused it with their contemporary imagination and then taken it into different areas as well, which I think is very exciting. So there’s a mix of both—a mix of stuff that you will recognize and a mix of stuff that will be new and different and hopefully very palatable and fantastic and exciting.”

Danny’s origin story is something that will apparently stay relatively close to the source material of the comics according to Loeb.

“We began from a very, very real world place which is that when Danny was ten years old, he disappears and the world believes that he’s dead, and so when he turns up at the very beginning of the show at the age of 25 and says, ‘Hi, I’m Danny Rand, billionaire,’ the rest of the world goes, ‘Maybe not so much.’ A lot of it is about a journey of finding self, not just in terms of who his character is, but in terms of what he wants to be as far as ‘Who is Danny Rand? What is the Iron Fist?’ and then, ‘How do these things get together?”

Star Finn Jones added to Loeb’s comments.

“Well, I just keep the characters rooted in real as possible. I imagine that the character was orphaned when he was ten years old, he lost his parents, he’s been living in a monastery under harsh conditions for the last 15 years. I just put that reality to me, and if someone went through this, how would he be? What kind of man would he be?’ And just really kind of rooted it in reality and just played the truth of the character and the circumstance in which he finds himself.”

Jones then went on to talk about his character after his ‘resurrection’.

“Yeah, everything has consequence, you know? It’s important to remember that I may have a fist that lights up and I can punch people really hard, but what are the consequences of having that power? What are the consequences of coming back and not knowing who you are and seeing your childhood best friend for the first time and not being able to connect to her, because she’s a completely different person. What are the consequences of that? What is the reality of that? Just kind of asking questions and keeping it real, as all the other shows do.”

The childhood best friend that Jones mentions there is Joy Meachum, son of Harold. While Joy may not play a huge role in the comics, she will have a much larger role in the show according to actress Jessica Stroup.

”I immediately went and searched for Joy Meachum? Where is she? Where is Joy? Her look? She’s blonde. Oh, she’s cute, okay. Is she good, is she bad? Very little of Joy… but not on the TV show, there’s more Joy. Watch out!“

Source: Collider via MCU Exchange

Sam Easton

Sam Easton

Young, aspiring screenwriter. Part time student, full time geek. Based in the UK.