"Anything's Possible" For Luke Cage To Return, Says Mike Colter [TCA 2019]

When Netflix began canceling Marvel shows, things didn't look good for Luke Cage. And sure enough, Mike Colter didn't even get to play Luke Cage for a third season. Now he is launching a new CBS show, Evil. After Evil's panel for the Television Critics Association, Colter spoke with reporters about the fate of Luke Cage and its possible future.

The cancellation of a series was a blow, but it's not always the end of an actor's time playing a superhero. Matt Ryan played John Constantine again on Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and in animated form. Should Marvel find another use for Luke Cage, Colter is open to it."Anything's possible," Colter said. "It's all about scheduling. It's nice to be gainfully employed doing something that I really love and a change of character completely."You might say, "Of course an actor wants to play his character again." That's not to say Colter would do anything Marvel asks of Luke Cage."I'd really need to see where he's going and what the storyline would be," Colter said. "Everyone has questions about where he was going to go in season three. At this point, we'd be starting not from scratch, but I need to see where he's going. As an actor, we're always looking to do different things so as long as you're gainfully employed and doing something that stimulates you, you're not always looking in your rearview mirror trying to figure out what else you can be doing with the character you've already played. So I'm more concerned about the future than the past, but I'm always open to doing something again. Then again, things happen."Colter also knows the role isn't only his. Just like Blade isn't Wesley Snipes' anymore."Marvel could recast, they could do anything they want with that project," Colter said. "They could do anything they want with it. It is their right."

By the time the axe came down on Luke Cage, Marvel fans probably had time to mentally prepare. Once the flagship Daredevil was cancelled, the ship was going down. Colter had some inside info, too."I think I probably had a little more intel about it because I felt like the delays and the postponement of our starting was starting to become a little bit habitual and I had a feeling," Colter said. "So while that was happening, I was doing some different little projects and just working, and I'm always the kind of person, I never count my chickens, as they say, before they hatch. Everyone thought it was a guaranteed success so it was going to just be picked up."

Canceling Luke Cage wasn't an entirely clean break. Work had begun on the third season. The handling of that was one of Colter's clues."We were internally picked up," Colter said. "We were greenlit. Everyone at Netflix, everyone at Marvel, so it was a foregone conclusion that we start. But again, I'm one of those people, I don't know if it's pragmatic or pessimistic, however you want to describe it, until I'm on set and we're filming, I don't believe anything. That's how I am so it didn't catch me completely off guard and I was completely focused on family. My daughter was born. I was completely doing something else when it happened."That does sound surprising that they were moving forward with stories before they found out. True, writing scripts costs a lot less than shooting the episodes, but it's still a considerable investment Netflix was willing to eat."It was a process that was happening," Colter said. "Season 3 was greenlit. They were in the process of greenlighting scripts, approving the scripts and stuff like that. It just kept getting delayed, delayed, delayed for a lot of reasons. So it's unfortunate but I feel like we left people wanting more as opposed to staying too long. It's unfortunate but like I said, it's always a possibility that something like that can come around again. Just not right now."Evil premieres Thursday, September 26 on CBS.