Charlie Cox is once again wearing the mask of Matt Murdock or, rather, Daredevil, the masked hero who watches over the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. This means that, after three months of hiatus, Daredevil: Born again is finally back on track and with significant changes both in front of and behind the cameras.
As of July 2022, it is known that Daredevil: Born again is in production. It is a reformulation of the blind superhero by Marvel Studios, after the defunct Marvel Television adapted the comic character for Netflix. In October, when almost half of the 18-episode season had already been filmed, the studio managers forced the set to close: the footage they had seen had not convinced them.
It was not a technical stoppage. Those chosen to breathe new life into the character, screenwriters Matt Corman and Chris Ord who had worked together on series such as Covert Affairs and The Enemy Within, were unceremoniously fired. Kevin Feige, current head of Marvel Studios, was not thrilled that they had rewritten Matt Murdock as a series of lawyers with weekly cases and without much violence or action.
The drastic decision, according to The Hollywood Reporter, had to do with Marvel’s current moment: titles like The Marvels have failed at the box office, series like Loki, Ms Marvel or She-Hulk do not generate the expected noise because they are such expensive productions. and, in this climate of brand exhaustion, they did not want to contribute to erosion with a product they were not enthusiastic about.
David Scardapane, who had worked on The Punisher for Netflix, was hired to redirect the production and see how much he could take advantage of the material shot. He will be the showrunner of the first season with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directing, who have Feige’s trust after getting behind the cameras on Loki.
Of course, so much money invested in a version of Daredevil that will not finally see the light of day has its consequences: Scardapane will not produce 18 episodes as planned but, as TVLine reports, the first season will move around 13.
And, if Corman and Ord had initially dispensed with Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson as Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, their colleagues at the law firm, the actors are now expected to return to the characters they had already played for Netflix.
It will be interesting, therefore, to see how this Daredevil: Born again relates to the previous television version of Daredevil, seeing that it repeats both the main trio and the already announced Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk or Jon Bernthal as The Punisher.
D’Onofrio and Cox, in fact, have already worked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe series: D’Onofrio made an appearance in Hawkeye and is currently in Echo, while Cox was in She-Hulk: Lawyer Hulka, having a sexual affair with the protagonist.
