The cast and creators of Jessica Jones sat down at the New York Comic-Con today to spill the beans on what is, by all accounts, a very promising series.
Marvel Television president Jeph Loeb moderated the NYCC panel Saturday October 10, which featured the appearances of Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight), Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad), Mike Colter (The Good Wife), Erin Moriarty (True Detective), Wil Treval (Once Upon a Time), Carrie-Ann Moss (The Matrix), David Tennant via video (Doctor Who), Eka Darville (The Originals), and Rachael Taylor (Transformers). Everyone seemed very excited to be bringing the story to life. While no official clips were released, the audience got to screen the pilot. Stay tuned for our non-spoiler pilot review soon!
Panel Highlights
- Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg wanted to make Jessica Jones for four years.
- Actress Erin Moriarty, who plays Hope, says the storytelling is surreal, especially with the female characters on the show.
- Carrie-Ann Moss, who plays Harper, was continually in shock as she read each script.
- Eka Darville said Malcolm is a very dark character to play.
- Rachael Taylor says that her character, Trish Walker, knows more Jessica Jones secrets than anyone else.
- Rachael also praised Krysten Ritter for portraying Jones’s deep, emotional backstory with sass and humor.
- Luke Colter shared that he is currently filming Luke Cage in NYC.
- Loeb shared that David Tennant is magic.
- Ritter praised Tennant’s Kilgrave for being funny, scary and vulnerable.
- David Tennant sent in a video message as he was doing a play in London.
What We Know About Jessica Jones So Far
The Netflix show will be a follow-up to this spring’s Daredevil, following the exploits of Jessica (Breaking Bad‘s Krysten Ritter), a down-on-her-luck superhero turned down-on-her-luck private eye. She’s been gifted with superhuman strength but, as the series’ teasers have shown, can’t seem to figure out how to be much more than a super-powered loser who sleeps in too late, drinks too much, brawls in any bar that crosses her wrong, and is clearly haunted by memories of the truly chilling Killgrave (Doctor Who‘s David Tennant).
Much of the hype surrounding Jessica Jones lies in the fact that it’s the first property to actually star a woman [EDIT: Nope. This is false. The author neglected Agent Carter], and kudos to Marvel and Netflix for choosing such a fascinating character. Few of Marvel’s announced projects lend themselves to the small screen as well as Jessica Jones, whose comics have typically featured her in low-key adventures, wrestling with criminals whose actions seem much more heinous than the world-munching of Galactus or the universe-domination of Thanos, if only because they’re so recognizable. Thor’s foes might blow your mind and make for great special effects, but Jessica Jones’ enemies are the reasons you lock your door at night.
So much so that (at least in her 2001-2004 series), Jessica was given one of the most tragic backstories in all of Marvel Comics. [Potential spoilers ahead!]. In a very controversial 2004 storyline written by Brian Michael Bendis, Jones attempted to take down Killgrave, only to fall under his hypnotic powers. He subdued her will for several months, psychologically torturing her in truly chilling fashion. The storyline wisely stopped short of depicting actual rape, but dealt frankly with sexual crime, and the lingering trauma of its survivors.
The big question surrounding the Netflix series has been whether or not the series will delve into these issues Daredevil proved that these properties are not afraid of adult situations (who can forget Wilson Fisk crushing an underling’s skull against a car door until it splattered like a can of tomatoes into a bowl?) but the Alias storyline is far more complex and troubling. Of course, creating a strong, badass heroine out of a survivor of sexual assault would be excellent and, by all accounts, Jones will be a badass (Via showrunner Melissa Rosenberg: “Jessica Jones is a brawler. She gets drunk, she gets pissed off, and boom, you’re down.”) Such a character is long overdue in the Marvel canon. But if it’s poorly handled, Jessica Jones will wind up the target of the same criticisms that have been rightfully haunting Games of Thrones for the past few seasons.
For all those reasons and more, it’ll be interesting to see just how Jessica Jones decides to treat its source material. We don’t know that yet, but we do have a pretty sweet poster, drawn by frequent Bendis collaborator Alex Maleev.
Thanks for checking out our NYCC panel recap! All episodes of Jessica Jones hit Netflix November 20, 2015.