Latest reports reveal that The Punisher season 3 won't be coming back to Netflix. There hasn't been an official confirmation from the streaming platform as of press time, but a cancellation seems to be in the offing.
According to Deadline, Netflix will reportedly pull the plug on The Punisher season 3, along with Jessica Jones. The latter show is still expected to launch its third season this year, but that's reportedly going to be the last installment on the streaming site.
The Punisher, which launched season 2 on Netflix last Jan. 18, has been waiting for a season 3 green light. However, with Netflix anticipating the launch of its newest competition, Disney+, the company has been shrinking its Disney and Marvel selections in the past months.
Executive producers Steve Lightfoot and Jeph Loeb, however, told Entertainment Weekly that they would still like to work on the third season on Netflix. They have planned out The Punisher season 3 before Netflix begun canceling their Marvel/Disney shows.
"We have a whole story in mind that would be awesome, but again, the guns are locked and loaded, but Netflix has the finger on the trigger," Loeb said. Incidentally, Loeb is also the head of Marvel's television division and had to deal with the spate of cancellations of its shows on Netflix, which he said was a disappointing decision.
But The Punisher's fate on the forthcoming Disney+ streaming platform isn't also sealed. At this point, Disney's line-up of upcoming shows consists mostly spinoffs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). These are the still-untitled young Loki TV show, the series featuring Falcon (played by Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (played by Sebastian Stan), and the show about Scarlet Witch (played by Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (played by Paul Bettany).
Disney chairman of the international division, Kevin Mayer, however, gave some hope about the status of The Punisher season 3. If Netflix does decide to drop the series from its library, Mayer sees a possibility that it will be picked up on Disney+ since it's a "very high-quality" series, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
However, Mayer also confirmed that there still hasn't been any discussion about these Marvel-Netflix shows moving to Disney+. Thus, it might take more than a year before fans of the series can watch new episodes of The Punisher.
Star Jon Bernthal said that he's at peace with whatever happens to his show. "I really only worry about the things I can control," the actor told Variety.
