Melissa Rosenberg also talks about feminism in the MCU.
It looks like we may see Krysten Ritter in a super suit after all.
The actress plays the titular character in Marvel and Netflix’s upcoming Jessica Jones series, which follows an ex-superhero who starts anew as a private eye in Hell’s Kitchen. But showrunner Melissa Rosenberg tells ETonline we may still see Jessica as Jewel or Knightress, two of her failed alter egos.
“We're going to hit on that! We're going to hit on it!” Rosenberg smiled coyly at the Summer TCA Press Tour. When we pressed her for details -- like whether it will be in flashbacks, à la Matt Murdoch's origin story in Daredevil -- she would only tease that they’re “glancing off it.”
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Still, Rosenberg, who has written on projects as varied as Dexter and The Twilight Saga, says she hopes that Jessica Jones will move things “beyond female superheroes as they look good in a unitard.”
In that vein, we asked whether she considers Jessica, one of Marvel's first female heroes to front a franchise, to be a feminist. “She herself wouldn’t consider herself a feminist. Or not!” she explained. “I approach this character not from telling a female story. Gender is not the first character aspect that defines her.”
During our extensive interview with Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television, at Comic-Con, he told us Jessica Jones is “more adult” and promised they were not shying away from “real problems” and “abuse” that Jessica grapples with. Rosenberg dittoed her complexity.
“She's funny! She's dark! She’s the real deal. She's utterly compelling, both the actress and the character,” Rosenberg told us. “The first time I saw [Ritter] do drama was Breaking Bad. And she was just a guest star. We pushed her to some really dark, emotional places, and she just keeps going there. She's got incredible range!”
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Jessica will have company in the strong female character department, though, as Rosenberg confirmed one major Daredevil crossover. “I think I'm allowed to say: Rosario Dawson will be dropping in,” she revealed.
Marvel previously announced that Dawson had signed a deal that would have her return for Daredevil’s second season, as well as make appearances in any of the four Defenders series. But now it’s official! Rosenberg added, “Smaller characters that populated that world will be popping in.”
That may be where the similarities between the two Netflix series ends. Loeb told us Jessica Jones, which will premiere sometime in 2015, is more of a “psychological thriller.” Rosenberg adds, “Our show has plenty of action, but it's not about the action.”
“It's about the character, it's about her emotional arc,” she explained. “And she's not a ninja. She never studies martial arts. She's a brawler. You piss her off and boom! You're down! We're not seeing a whole lot of--“ She mimicked a praying mantis pose and cried, “Hiyah!”
“She's not out to save the city,” she laughed. “She's out to make rent.”
Speaking of Daredevil, check out this behind-the-scenes look at season one:
