What Marvel’s Luke Cage series on Netflix owes Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films
Cheo Hidari Coker, who helms new series featuring Marvel Comics’ black superhero, says his experience as a hip hop journalist and study of Jackson’s films helped him decide which characters to leave out and which to keep
The first thing Cheo Hodari Coker wanted to do when he found out he had been entrusted with a 13-episode digital series predicated on superhero Luke Cage was to shout it from the rooftops. Until the screenwriter and producer realised that, of course, he couldn’t.
“I’ve been living with the secret of this show for two years,” Coker says about complying with the mandate from Marvel to not discuss the project. “I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to run the show and create the character in the TV space and wanted to tell everyone but couldn’t say anything. And then it was announced and the attention I got was overwhelming.”
By now, former hip hop journalist and author Coker – alongside Mike Colter, who plays Cage – are used to it. Ferociously devoted comic book fans have been anticipating the release of the series for months; it started streaming worldwide on Netflix at the end of last month.
Colter is not new to the role of Luke Cage – one of the first black superheroes – having appeared alongside Krysten Ritter in the hit Netflix series Jessica Jones, where they meet in the first episode. Luke Cage, whose superpower is unbreakable, unpenetrable skin, has been a staple of the Marvel Comics universe since 1972. On the show and in the books, he’s spent time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and later ends up a fugitive.
His co-stars include Mahershala Ali from House of Cards and Alfre Woodard.